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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27672149">Swallow the Sweet Self-Loathing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/2012bookworm/pseuds/2012bookworm'>2012bookworm</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Spill of the War [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Minor Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:43:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>32,012</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27672149</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/2012bookworm/pseuds/2012bookworm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim's doing better.  Dick, not so much.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Spill of the War [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2023460</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>97</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Swallow the Sweet Self-Loathing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It's been a bit.  This story includes some dark themes (see end notes for full warnings), but in particular note there's a serial killer on the loose targeting kids.</p>
<p>Title from Frightened Rabbit's Nitrous Gas.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He dodges the knife.  Or at least manages to get out of the way enough that the stab wound is no more than a line of pain across his ribs.  It’s cold enough, he’s cold enough, that the dripping blood feels pleasant-hot against his skin, and he keeps a small part of his mind on that spreading heat in case the cut’s deeper than he thinks. The rest is on the three gang members whose meeting he interrupted.  The one with the knife overextended himself with that stab attempt and Dick hits his outstretched arm hard enough to make him drop the shoddy blade before spinning to kick the guy coming up on his left in the solar plexus.  He’s got his back to the stained alley wall, which is great for controlling points of attack and not so much for maneuverability.  Third guy’s fumbling with a gun, so he takes the extra second to pull a batarang out of his boot and aim it properly, which gives the original goon just enough time to recover and land a vicious kidney punch.  He knew he should have stopped and reloaded his wrist sheathes earlier, but he wasn’t expecting this much of a fight.  He repays the punch with an elbow to the nose.  The goon reels back and gives Dick enough room to wallop him with his one remaining escrima.  He goes down, finally.  The goon-now-without-a-gun is still cursing over his wrist and scrambling to find the gun he dropped, but kicked goon now has enough of his wind back to be angry.  He tries to rush Dick, who flips over him, suppressing a wince at the way the move pulls at the fresh cut on his side.  Dick knocks the idiot out in the second of confusion that move always buys him, and turns to face the last guy, who’s managed to get his phone flashlight out and on.  He looks up at the quiet, realizes his buddies are down, and freezes.</p>
<p>“Well friend, I’m afraid it’s lights out!” Dick tells him before knocking him out with his escrima.</p>
<p>The pun is less fun when Tim’s not there to give him a judging, exasperated look</p>
<p>He ties the three men up, calls it in, and starts hunting for his second escrima, which got thrown early as a distraction.  Once again he considers painting the damn things the same electric blue as his finger stripes, just so he can find them in dark alleys.</p>
<p>That Jason would make fun of him forever is not the only reason he hasn’t, but it’s a bigger consideration than it should be.</p>
<p>He finds the stick wedged into a crack between the asphalt and the wall right as a set of police sirens gets close and scrambles up on the roof to watch and make sure they’re clean.  Gangs are difficult.  He feels less bad about beating up dirty cops now that they’re not his coworkers, but it still leaves him mopey and more tired than he should be.  Not that that’s hard these days.  Half the reason for the cut he’s sloppily bandaging while the cops throw the goons in the back of a squad car is that he’s sleeping in Bludhaven this week instead of at Tim’s.  Which means alone.  Which means he’s not sleeping.</p>
<p>Not that this a particularly new phenomenon, but it’s gotten worse recently.</p>
<p>It’s another few hours on the streets stopping mostly petty crime before he bleeds through the two layers of bandage bad enough that they start to drip and he decides to call it a night.  The cut’s low enough, right on the edge of where his ribs end, that he doesn’t have to completely pretzel himself to stitch it.  It’s still awkward enough that he’s glad he’s had plenty of practice stitching blind.</p>
<p>He doesn’t bother with painkillers, but it’s not the pain that leaves him lying awake, the numbing gel fading into a sharp ache as he stares at the ceiling and tries not to flinch at sirens.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Jason stumbles on a fourth murdered street kid that evening during patrol.  Well, doesn’t stumble on so much as was led to by a kid whose hands are already getting chapped from the cold.  He doesn’t seem scared, but Jason remembers viscerally how the need to survive can numb a lot of horrors.  He’d rarely had nightmares until the manor.</p>
<p>The dead kid looks like he’s been stabbed, a mugging at first glance, except Jason’s seen a lot of those and there’s something off.  Everything’s too textbook perfect, the body too cleanly fallen.  Besides, everyone knows street kids don’t have anything on ‘em worth stealing.</p>
<p>Something in him screams serial killer, has been since the second kid’s body appeared a few weeks ago. Each killing’s been different, the first kid strangled, the second shot, the third beaten to death, no similarities except that they’re all kids no adult would miss.</p>
<p>“Thanks,” Jason tells the kid who brought him here, pulling out an extra pair of gloves to hand over.  The kid saunters out of the alley and disappears.</p>
<p>He takes a closer look at the body, noting the new-ish shoes and the bulge in one worn jacket pocket.  He reaches in, careful, and pulls out a folded scarf, too thin to be practical, with a cheap screen printed pattern of flowers.  He wants to say daisies, but he grew up in the city – the only plants he can identify for sure can be used to make poisons.</p>
<p>There’s blood on one folded edge, where it must have soaked through the pocket, but the piece of costume jewelry inside is untouched.</p>
<p>Definitely not a mugging then, if they hadn’t taken this.  The scarf is useless, and the necklace charm seems cheap, a copper-colored leaf badly shaped, but the chain looks like sterling silver, enough to earn a little money at a pawn shop.  Must have been important to the kid, wrapped up the way it is, and it and the shoes tell Jason he hadn’t been on the streets long, not if he wasn’t yet desperate enough to sell it.</p>
<p>Jason takes photos and then replaces everything, hoping the police, if they even bother to investigate, will see it for the evidence it is.</p>
<p>They won’t, he knows this, has experienced the indifference first hand.  It’s just a street kid, an easy open-shut mugging, but maybe, just maybe, something will strike one of the better officers with the uneasy feeling of wrong, and they’ll put a note on the file.  Something Jason can point to when he finds this killer, even if it’s weeks or even months later.</p>
<p>It shouldn’t take that long, but serial killers can be tricky, especially when he’s only working on instinct, nothing concrete that can lead to a person or motivation.</p>
<p>A few more pictures, this time of the full scene, and then he leaves to warn Leah.  They’ve become not quite friends but better than allies over the last few weeks, Jason finding ways to lock up the johns who prey on kids and Leah feeding him information.  It’s odd, considering how few people Jason considers trustworthy, has ever considered trustworthy, how quickly she wormed her way into his confidence.</p>
<p>But then, it’s been an odd few weeks, a month and a half since he found Tim dosed and shaking on a rooftop, and they’ve fallen into an weirdly nice equilibrium, with Jason and Dick trading off weeks in the guest room while Kon spends as much time as he can on the couch.  Tim’s been patrolling for two weeks now, still paired, mostly with Dick because Bludhaven’s horrible and it’s easy for Batman to believe Dick might need a hand.  Steph’s both joined in the patrol partner rotation and instituted a weekly movie night.  So far they haven’t made it through a single fucking movie without someone falling asleep, but the thought’s nice.  Last week Tim picked some black and white foreign film and they were all out within fifteen minutes.  Which may have been the point.</p>
<p>There’d been one almost relapse, when Tim first started patrolling again.  He’d called Jason, voice shaking, and Jason found him on the roof of his apartment with a syringe in his hand.  He'd had talked the kid down, gotten him into bed, and then chased his own shadow through the streets until he was shaking with exhaustion and didn’t see his mother with the same pleading hand every time he so much as blinked.</p>
<p>Jason’s not stupid enough to think that’ll be the only relapse, but he’s doing his best to trust in his reluctantly claimed brother.</p>
<p>Leah joins him on the fire escape across from the warehouse he’s starting to think of as hers only a few minutes after he arrives.  He’s up to about a fifty-fifty chance of spotting her lookouts, but he’s got the feeling that it’s more because they know he’s safe and let themselves be careless than that he’s actually getting better at it.  It’s more reassuring than annoying.</p>
<p>“You’ve got news?”  Her voice is hungry, and Jason belatedly remembers the other case he’s working on.</p>
<p>“Not about that, though I’m close, I think.”  Her face goes swirly, unrecognizable, for a moment.  He knew this latest guy had done something, but… Later.  He’ll ask later.  “Found another dead street kid tonight.  I…” Street kids end up dead all the time, easy prey, but these four feel different.  “Someone’s targeting them.  Spread the word, far as you can.”</p>
<p>She nods, face tight, already planning how to keep her kids safe.  Jason refuses to let his fists clench.  He knows from Dick who heard it from his coworkers that they’ve offered Leah couches and spare bedrooms, places to sleep safe and warm.  She’s refused every time, returning instead to the darkness of Crime Alley, to watch over kids not much younger than her.</p>
<p>This is the thing Bruce never sees, can’t understand, alone in his ivory tower.  The small, fierce courage of a community on the edge.  Jason’s never been exaggerating when he calls the street girls braver than him.  He thinks this kid might be braver than him too.</p>
<p>“Is it just Crime Alley?” Leah asks.  “Or the other neighborhoods too?”</p>
<p>Jason stiffens, another piece falling into place.  So far, there’s been one body per neighborhood, circling up into the slightly more affluent places, with this last body in the less nice part of Robbinsville.  He might have a chance of guessing the location of the next murder.</p>
<p>It’s not much, but he’ll take it.</p>
<p>“Assume the whole city for now.  I’ll let you know if I get things narrowed down.”  It’s not like all the neighborhoods in Gotham have kids that won’t be missed.  But it’s also possible this serial killer will escalate.  “Anything odd you’ve seen recently?”</p>
<p>She starts to shake her head, stops, considers.  “There’s been more people than usual around the old yacht club building.  Rumor is they’re turning it into some kind of community arts space, but…”</p>
<p>“No one would come to this side of Gotham for an art gallery?  Yeah, I’ll check it out.”</p>
<p>“Thanks.”  She slides down the ladder to the ground, landing lightly enough that even Dick would be pleased.  “Let me know when you’ve done something about that name I gave you.”</p>
<p>“I will.  And get some sleep!”</p>
<p>She flips him off and disappears.</p>
<p>This latest john has been a problem, a businessman too affluent to intimidate and too clever to leave evidence.  Jason’s giving it another week before he just frames him.  If Leah gave him the name, that’s enough for him, but Dick will whine at him about justice if he doesn’t at least try.  Tim might help him manufacture evidence.</p>
<p>He's got a few more leads to run down before he gets to that point, and for now, there’s plenty of petty crime to take the edge off his frustrations.</p>
<p>He fires his grapple and starts looking for trouble.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Usually, Dick’s the best at dealing with rude customers.  He can smile through anything and is male and pretty enough to avoid the worst of the insults.  Today though, he’s tired and sore and every time he twists to reach the espresso machine his stitches pull and he would sort of like to collapse into a ball of misery, please and thank you.  He doesn’t, because this is far from the worst shift he’s ever had, even if the last three customers had all yelled at him.  Also, Leah’s the other person working the counter and he’s not putting her through whatever bad karma is happening.</p>
<p>Leah, who’s watching him like he’s her mission, eyes following every miniscule twitch.</p>
<p>Helen comes in half an hour later and Leah’s shoulders drop at least two inches.</p>
<p>“Oh, thank god.  Fix him,” she says, and gestures at Dick.</p>
<p>He splutters.  “What?  I’m fine.”</p>
<p>Leah and Helen exchange a look.  “You tried feeding him?” Helen asks.</p>
<p>“I am not hungry!  And right here!”</p>
<p>“Obviously,” Leah says.  “It didn’t work.  He wouldn’t even take a cinnamon roll.”</p>
<p>Helen’s eyebrows rise and she gives him another look.  He doesn’t turn away from the scrutiny, but it’s a close thing.  Helen always sees much more than she lets on, and has a worrying track record of noticing his bruises even through make-up.</p>
<p>“Breakroom,” she says to him.  “You need to sit for at least ten minutes.”</p>
<p>“But…”</p>
<p>“Leah will be fine.  It's quiet.  Now shoo.”</p>
<p>He shoos.</p>
<p>It’s been over ten minutes and Dick is catnapping propped up on the tiny sofa when Helen comes in with an ice pack and a plate.</p>
<p>“Now,” she says, passing him the icepack and one of Lola’s cinnamon rolls, “what’s going on?”</p>
<p>“Nothing!”  She gives him the you’re-an-idiot look he normally associates with Donna.  “Really, it’s just been a long day.”</p>
<p>“Honey, it’s not even noon.  Try again.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t sleep well?”  He’d tried using his best deflection tactics on her exactly once.  He’d ended up panic babbling and telling her way more than he meant to, so the chances of this working are slim, but he’s gotta at least <em>try.</em></p>
<p>“Uh-huh.  You want to talk about it?”</p>
<p>He wouldn’t know where to start.  “No?”</p>
<p>“I’m going to need a firmer answer than that.”</p>
<p>If he knew where to start, he’d tell her.  It’s not that he doesn’t trust her, because he does.  She’s Helen, practical and sharp, her box braids almost always tied up in a neat bun on top of her head, a tiny guestroom that’s always full.  Her wife, Lola, bakes the pastries for the shop.  Her mug in the cabinet is heavy, solid ceramic with beautiful geometric lines picked out in gold.  But his secrets are layered, some so buried he doesn’t know how to separate them, sure one small slip will bring up the whole messy skeleton.</p>
<p>He can try, maybe?  “You ever feel like no matter what you do you’re going to fail someone?”</p>
<p>She looks at him, her smile knowing, and he starts babbling, damn it.</p>
<p>“I mean, my brother – the one, you know, with the issues, well they’ve all got issues but the one who was trying to stop, um, well, he was depressed, and I suggested therapy, and he agreed if I would go too, which like, I was very willing to do, and it seems to be really helping him, which is great, but I’ve had three therapists over the past month and a half, and every time I pick him up and tell him I’m trying someone else he looks kind of wary, like I’m not keeping up my part of the bargain, which is fair, but it’s not like I’m doing it on purpose and today is therapist number four and I really, really don’t want to go.”  Christ, how does she <em>do this?</em>  He doesn’t spill his guts like this to <em>anyone</em>.  “But I want him to keep going, so I’ll go, you know?  It’ll be fine.”</p>
<p>She sighs.  “You don’t ever make it easy on yourself, do you?”</p>
<p>He tries to stifle the part of his brain that translates <em>easy</em> as <em>cop-out</em>.</p>
<p>“Have you considered, I don’t know, talking to your brother about this?” she offers.</p>
<p>“Yeah, we’re not so great at that communication thing.”  For evidence, see the whole Dick taking away Robin debacle followed by the not believing Tim about Bruce debacle.  “And I – he’s the one I need to be supporting right now.”</p>
<p>“You do realize support – relationships in general – are a two way street, right?”</p>
<p>Yes, he knows, but practically he’s never been able to make it work like that.  Either he gives until there’s nothing or he takes until the other person gets sick of him and pushes him away.  Sometimes it’s both in the same relationship, which is a really excellent level of suck that he would like to avoid in the future.</p>
<p>He shrugs and changes the subject.  “How’s Lola?”</p>
<p>Her pursed lips and raised eyebrows tell him she recognizes what he’s doing.  “She’s good.  Got a catering job for a big Wayne Enterprises event, funnily enough.”</p>
<p>“Oh?”  He may have put her name down, but it’s not like she doesn’t deserve it.  Lola’s pastries are the <em>best.</em></p>
<p>“Keep this up and she won’t have time to bake cinnamon rolls for this little old place.”</p>
<p>“Trust me, I need them more at those stupid events.”</p>
<p>The gleam in Helen’s eyes makes him realize he’s all but confessed how much he hates high society functions, but she doesn’t call him on it.</p>
<p>“Eat your cinnamon roll.”</p>
<p>“Yes ma’am.”</p>
<p>He manages not to inhale it, because Helen would scold him for not appreciating her wife’s cooking, but it’s still gone in less than four bites.  Maybe he <em>was</em> hungry.</p>
<p>“You know,” Helen says before he can seriously consider licking the plate, “I never really got therapy.  I always figured I could work on things myself, and when I did need help I wasn’t going to go to a stranger for it.  But Lola – it helped, with all the things she was bottling up inside.”  She shrugs.  “Maybe it’d help me too.  But I’m doing fine, happy most of the time, and maybe part of me’s afraid of what they’d find.  But you – you’re more like Lola than me, I think.  Sometimes you need someone who doesn’t love you to release that cork.”</p>
<p>“So you’re saying I should stick with it?” Dick asks with a wry smile.</p>
<p>She tilts her head, peers at him.  “I’m saying something’s got to change or you’ll shatter.”</p>
<p>“I’m fine, really –“</p>
<p>“Dick,” she interrupts, firm, “why do you think we keep trying to feed you?”</p>
<p>He doesn’t know how to answer that honestly.  He picks at the icepack instead.</p>
<p>She sighs.  “Ready to go back out there?”</p>
<p>No, but there’s only one answer here.  “Of course!”  He manages a pretty good version of his sunny smile and doesn’t groan when he gets up.</p>
<p>“Dick,” Helen says right before he opens the door, “it’s ok if you’re not ok.”</p>
<p>She’s wrong, but he appreciates the sentiment.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Therapist number four is fine, but Dick still doesn’t bother to make a follow up appointment.  He should, this guy wasn’t like therapist number two, who frowned every time Dick started to fidget until he went yelled at by Batman rigid and irritated his bad shoulder, or three whose body language was so carefully neutral even he couldn’t read it.  He was just… off, in a way Dick doesn’t know how to explain.  He’ll probably call and schedule something after Tim looks at him all disappointed but he couldn’t make himself do it just because.</p>
<p>This therapist was in a different part of town than Tim’s, and he spends the entire fifteen minute drive trying not to think.</p>
<p>The great thing about having Tim partner with him on patrols is that Bludhaven’s crime rate is at an overall low.  They closed his last big case two nights ago, another trafficking ring, which is good and great and wonderful and now he has nothing to use as a distraction.</p>
<p>He can’t remember the last time he hasn’t had a case.  He tends to avoid it for just this reason.</p>
<p>It shows how much better Tim is at this stuff than well, anyone, that it only took him two weeks to get everything square.  Dick, he’s got the years and the instincts and the flexibility, but god Tim… Tim’ll be something someday.  Is something.  They’ve got to make sure he gets there.</p>
<p>Tim comes out of the building with a smug little smirk that doesn’t fade when he climbs into the car.</p>
<p>“So it went ok?”</p>
<p>Tim leans back, all satisfied, and it’s a look Dick hasn’t seen since he was sixteen and his plan to outsmart Mr. Freeze went off without a hitch.  “She believes me about Red Robin now.”</p>
<p>“Good?”</p>
<p>“She went about three shades of pale and apologized for thinking I was delusional.”  He pauses.  “It was <em>awesome.</em>”</p>
<p>Dick laughs, like he’s supposed to, and hopes Tim doesn’t ask.</p>
<p>“How was yours?”</p>
<p>No dice.  “Um, fine?”  The look Tim throws him is sharp, on the edge of suspicious.  Dick tries for casual.  “There’s four more people on my list, someone’s bound to stick?”</p>
<p>“Dick…”</p>
<p>“I’m trying, I am, I promise, it’s just… I…” Lately all his words keep failing, charming tongue tied heavy in his mouth, “I’m trying.”</p>
<p>He's not sure Tim believes him.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Jason and Tim are patrolling the nicer part of Robbinsville, Tim because it’s part of his territory, Jason so he can keep an eye out for the serial killer, and it's close enough to stop by and check out the old yacht club on the way home.</p>
<p>Well, to Tim’s apartment.  Where he spends most nights.</p>
<p>Anyway.</p>
<p>“Mind making a detour before we call it a night?  I’ve got a location I need to check.”</p>
<p>Tim shrugs, falls back so Jason can lead.  He takes them on a roundabout circle towards the bay, pausing to stop an attempted break-in and otherwise just listening for anything odd.  It still doesn’t take them more than fifteen minutes to reach the old yacht club, it’s stonework grandeur out of place in the midst of dirty brickwork and salt-stained wood.</p>
<p>The land on a warehouse roof with a decent view of the front entrance.  There’s a temporary trailer taking up space in the parking lot, and the door looks like it’s chained shut, but the windows are boarded up well enough that there could be lights on and no one could tell.</p>
<p>“Leah said there’s more activity around this place than normal.  The gossip is someone’s trying to turn it into some kind of community center, or arts center, which even in Robinsville is an obvious lie, so…” Tim is fidgeting, something he doesn’t do as Red Robin.  “What do you know?”</p>
<p>“Um, it’s, um, not a lie?  It’s one of the Wayne foundation charity projects, sort of?  I mean, it’s sponsored by them, but I’m really the one overseeing it, and, um.  Well, it should be done in a couple of months?”</p>
<p>What.  “What?  No, wait, why?”</p>
<p>Tim ducks his head.  “It’s… my therapist suggested I do something outside the job, find a, a hobby, though at that point she still thought I was lying about the night job so she probably meant outside of Wayne Enterprises, which this sort of isn’t, but it’s definitely outside of the night job, and it’ll be outside of Wayne Enterprises once the center gets up and running and I can help curate exhibits and maybe teach a photography class?”</p>
<p>“So your therapist told you to get a hobby and you started a community center?”  Maybe Bruce’s overcompensations are less a Bruce thing than a rich boy thing.  “For the arts?  In <em>Robbinsville?”</em></p>
<p>“And?”</p>
<p>Of course, now that he actually has to defend his crazy idea he’s no longer slumped and stuttering.  Maybe this should have been their plan to help in the first place.  All of them have always done better when they’ve got a fight.  And wait…</p>
<p>“Does this mean you’ll finally get some of those shots you hid downstairs framed?”</p>
<p>Tim blushes, hard enough that it’s visible below the cowl.  It’s glorious.  “No.”</p>
<p>Jason’ll wear him down.  It’s become his new mission.  Those pictures are <em>great</em>.  Even if Dick got weird about a few of them.</p>
<p>“Well, good for you.  Any other suspicious activities I should attribute to you?”</p>
<p>He has to actually think about it, the nerd.  “No?”</p>
<p>Jason laughs.  Tim doesn’t flinch at the way the voice modulator makes it sound like mechanical failure.  “Then let’s head home.”</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>He’s patrolling with Damian tonight, something he tries to do at least once a month, more if Bruce’ll let him.  They fall into the rhythm easily, a Robin to his Batman, even if Damian’s no longer his Robin.</p>
<p>It had taken weeks, the first time, getting Dami to trust him, to listen, to not throw himself forward in a rabid desire to prove himself the best.  Now, two rooftops in and he’s got a shadow fitting itself to his left.  He’s missed it.  Even running with Tim, much as he loves him, isn’t the same.  They were never partners the way he and Dami were, never built the bodily trust that allows him to know where Dami is as well as he knows his own limbs.</p>
<p>Won’t ever be, because he threw that all away for the sharp-tongued boy he’s come to love more than the circus, more than justice.</p>
<p>He can’t make himself regret it, but there are moments with Tim that make him feel like he should.</p>
<p>They’re just outside the Diamond District, in one of Gotham’s “safer” areas, the buildings tall and gothic and familiar.  It’s cold, but not enough for snow, not yet, brisk without being freezing.  He’ll need to pull out his insulated suit soon, check it for wear and tear.  Remind everyone else to do the same.</p>
<p>Gotham’s been quiet for a while – too long, Dick’s paranoia whispers – and tonight’s no exception. But even quiet Gotham is still a city full of lights and sirens, laughs and screams and the noise of people living.</p>
<p>One particular scream rises up from the west, and Dick turns that way, his shadow less than a half-beat behind. </p>
<p>It’s a mugger, armed with a knife not a gun, and in the half-second it takes Dick to assess the scene, Robin’s already on him.</p>
<p>So he waits, watches, calls the police and nods in approval after the mugger’s knocked out and tied up, escorts the lost victim back to a well-lit street.  And then they’re flying again, window ledge to rooftop to fire escape to balcony to rooftop, flickering in and out of view of the people passing below.</p>
<p>Another mugging, an attempted break-in, some drug peddling, and a couple fights later, they stop in the shadow of an old steeple.  Dick pulls his flask from his boot (Jason howled the first time he saw it, even if it’s never held anything more exciting than water) and looks his Robin over.  He’s been more aggressive than usual tonight, taking the lead as much as Dick will let him, uncomfortably similar to those few weeks early on when he was desperate to impress, to prove himself.  Maybe B’s been extra hard lately?</p>
<p>“I trust my work has been sufficient?” Dami asks, and yep, looks like B’s been pushing again.  He needs to stop doing that, Dami’s going to end up hurt or exhausted or both, and –</p>
<p>But it’s not his problem anymore, is it? </p>
<p>“You’ve done very well tonight, Robin.”</p>
<p>“Better than the Pretender?”</p>
<p>“Don’t – Robin, don’t call him that.”  He thought they were getting better.</p>
<p>“But am I?  Better?”</p>
<p>“Why does it matter?”  They're <em>different</em>, and he loves them both, and he's tired of them hating each other.</p>
<p>Dami fidgets, barely noticeable.  “He has taken over as your partner.  A comparison is useful.”</p>
<p>And oh, <em>oh</em>, this kid.  He restrains his need to hug him to a hand on his shoulder, squeezing extra hard so his touch can be felt through the armor.</p>
<p>“You’re still my Robin.  It’s – you’ve got Batman now, the real one.  I don’t want to get in the way of that.”</p>
<p>“Of course you wish me trained by the best.”  He hesitates.  “But I – you should come to the manor more often.”</p>
<p>Dick hears the underlying <em>I miss you</em> and aches.  He’s been avoiding the manor since all this with Tim, half-afraid he’ll give something away. </p>
<p>Hell, if he’s honest with himself, he’s been avoiding the manor since shortly after Bruce came back, trying to give him and Damian time to bond. </p>
<p>Trying to forget what he used to have.</p>
<p>But obviously that’s not working, and his hurt he can deal with, but Damian’s is not allowed.  He’s got to do better.</p>
<p>“I’ve missed you too.  Let’s – we’ll try to do something outside the capes soon, ok?”  Batman won’t like it, but too bad.</p>
<p>Dami lights up.  “There’s – an exhibit, at the museum? I – could we go?”</p>
<p>“Of course.”  Even if he has to bribe Alfred, or lie to Bruce, who doesn’t like it when they’re together alone in public, too many rumors that Damian is Dick’s unacknowledged child.</p>
<p>They finish patrol.  Dami quits throwing himself in front of every threat with such fervor.  Dick takes him back to the Batcave, stays just long enough to brief B on their night, and runs across the rooftops until his muscles ache and the cut on his ribs starts leaking blood.</p>
<p>He manages three hours of dreamless sleep before he bolts upright at the sound of a siren.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>The only good thing about only getting three hours of sleep is that he used the extra time to clean his apartment, so it’s in at least decent shape when Bruce knocks on his door around noon.  The bad thing about only getting three hours of sleep is that he’s still tired enough that clothes seemed like too much effort and is still in the flannel sleep pants he pulled on the night before.</p>
<p>The downside to his clean apartment is that there aren’t any extra clothes lying around for him to grab, so the general knock on the door scramble involves much more banging than normal, which means Bruce looks ready to break down the door when he finally gets it open.</p>
<p>“Bruce!” Dick realizes his shirt is on backwards.  This will go so well.  Not that Bruce coming over ever goes well, but there are levels.  “What are you doing here?”</p>
<p>“Alfred suggested I talk to you.  May I come in?”</p>
<p>And they just went up a level.  Dick gestures Bruce inside and closes the door.</p>
<p>He’s inspecting the place, even if he has the courtesy not to be obvious about it, and Dick, for once, is grateful for the insomnia.  Not a single dirty dish or takeout box anywhere, and he even <em>dusted</em>.  Bruce deigns to sit on the couch without giving it a suspicious look first.  Dick does not sit, but he does lean against the bar separating the kitchen from the living room.</p>
<p>“So.”  He waits a beat.  Bruce does not take the opening.  “What do you need?”</p>
<p>Bruce doesn’t squirm, but it looks like he wants to, and that’s weird.  Weirder.  “I hear you’re working at a coffee shop?”</p>
<p>What the hell.  “And?  There’s no way you’ve just found out about this.  I’ve been working there for months.”  He’s found, over time, that it is better to ignore the surveillance unless it gets to a certain point of invasive.  Knowing where he works doesn’t cross that line.  “I’m not going to quit, if that’s what you’re here for.”  He’s lost too many refuges to intentionally give up another one.</p>
<p>“No.”  Bruce grimaces.  “Although, if you want to go back to school, you know I’d –“</p>
<p>Dick shakes his head.  “Didn’t really like it in the first place, not interested now.  I repeat – why are you here?”</p>
<p>“Damian wishes to visit your… employment and I wanted to ensure that that was fine,” Bruce says, his tone carefully measured.</p>
<p>He’s hiding something, has to be, there’s no reason for him to come all the way out to Bludhaven to ask that kind of question.  Dick just can’t figure out what he’s trying to cover, if he wants a favor or a confrontation or something else altogether.  He’s the best at reading Bruce besides Alfred, or at least he used to be, but even then the microexpressions sometimes escape him or one of the many masks proves too thick.</p>
<p>Whatever it is, he refuses to play the game.  “He’s welcome to stop by.”</p>
<p>“You’re not undercover?”</p>
<p>Dick rolls his eyes.  “Why does everyone assume that?  No, I’m employed as Dick Grayson, ex-cop, former circus freak, trust fund brat.”  Nightwing.  He doesn’t mention that Tom probably knows that part too.  “I get W-2’s and everything.”</p>
<p>Bruce pauses and Dick thinks they’re finally going to get to the point.</p>
<p>“Would you mind if I stopped by as well?”</p>
<p>What.  “You… want to come by the coffee shop?  <em>Why</em>?”  Bruce drinks coffee of course, but not because he particularly enjoys it.  And sweets aren’t his thing the way they are Dick’s and Jason’s.</p>
<p>Bruce shifts, minute but there.  “I’d like to see where you work.”</p>
<p>Oh, this is another one of Bruce’s bullshit control freak things where he tries to run Dick’s life because he apparently can’t ever do it well enough.  He’d fight about it but he’s too fucking tired.</p>
<p>“Sure,” he says dully.  “Do whatever you want.”  He always does.</p>
<p>Maybe he’ll go back to bed once Bruce leaves, close the blackout curtains he hates and pretend it’s night.</p>
<p>“Usually you’d fight me on this.”</p>
<p>Unusually perceptive.  “Do you want a fight?”  Dick’s not really up to giving him one, but he’ll try.  “Is that why you came all the way out here instead of, you know, calling?”</p>
<p>“No.”  God, getting Bruce to talk is like pulling teeth, and Dick is not in the mood.  Adrenaline’s mixing unfortunately with the exhaustion, and he’s not shaking but feels like he wants to, and this may turn into a fight just because anger is better than tears.</p>
<p>He grips the counter behind him.  “Bruce.  Leave or explain.  I’ve got things to do.”  Like forgetting the world exists for a while.</p>
<p>“I wanted to make sure Damian was not being an imposition,” Bruce finally blurts out after too long silent.  “That he would not be disturbing you.  It didn't seem that he received an explicit invite.  And Alfred suggested it was better to have that kind of conversation in person.”</p>
<p>“Well, Alfred was right,” Dick says, gripping tighter so he won’t start laughing hysterically.  “But you’re an idiot.  Damian is not an, an <em>imposition</em>, could never be… is that what he is to you?  Just, just another obligation, another <em>good soldier</em>, do you – he’s my <em>brother</em>, Bruce, my –“ Robin “ – responsibility, I love him, and I’ve only stayed away because you asked, because you said it was better, even though I hate it, so much, but he’s your son and I thought you should make that call.”  Bruce is frozen on the couch, and Dick can feel his knuckles creaking.  “If you don’t want him, if it’s just… if you can’t love him, give him to me and I <em>will.</em>”</p>
<p>He’d change his whole life for that boy, already has, pushed Tim away, fought through the grief and numbness and denial, loved him and raised him and gave him up when Bruce came back, dealt with that new sort of grief.  If that was the wrong choice…</p>
<p>Dick takes a breath, tries to loosen his hands.  “I’ve wanted to take Dami to my coffee shop for months.  I haven’t because of you.”</p>
<p>Bruce is still frozen, though the lines of his body are slipping into something close to ashamed.  “I – he is my son.  Of course I care for him.”  He clears his throat.  “I also care for you.”</p>
<p>Dick’s finally able to let go of the counter.  Bruce won’t say love – he rarely does – but he means the same thing.  And he’d known that, he had, or at least thought he had, but it’s good to have it confirmed.  They’ve been slipping apart for a long time now.  It makes him question his judgement.</p>
<p>“You know I don’t care?  What the paps say?  If they call him my son.  If, if it really bothers you that’s one thing, but I don’t – anyone who knows anything would realize that’s not true.”</p>
<p>For one, he would have claimed his child the moment he found out they existed.</p>
<p>“I – I didn’t want to cause you any more worry.  It seems I’ve managed the opposite.”</p>
<p>Dick laughs at that.  It sounds fake even to him, but he’s always been good at moving everyone back to neutral ground.  “Well, communication’s never been anyone’s strong suit.”</p>
<p>Bruce nods, ghost of a smile on his face, it worked, thank god, and stands to leave.  He hesitates at the door.  “This coffee shop.  You like it?  You’re happy?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>“We’ll be by sometime next week.”  And he leaves.</p>
<p>Dick collapses to the floor, winded and full of the barest balm of relief, the sharpest shard of hope.</p>
<p>Bruce, it seems, has started paying attention.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>“How do you feel about frame jobs?”</p>
<p>“What?” Tim asks, swiveling around in his chair to stare at Jason where he’s cleaning his guns on the table.</p>
<p>“Frame jobs.  Got a guy, know he’s bad business, can’t seem to get anything on ‘im that’d put him away.”  Jason sights down the barrel.  “Some fines, definitely, probably even community service, maybe if I’m very lucky a week or two of jail time, but nothing like I need or he deserves.”</p>
<p>Tim sighs.  “In my experience, even the best frame job eventually gets discovered, and then the guy you wanted jailed is suddenly free and that much harder to prosecute.  Especially if he’s rich and powerful.”</p>
<p>Jason starts reassembling the gun, shaking his head.  “Timmy Tim-Tam, who’d you frame?  And does the big bad Bat know about it?”</p>
<p>They’re in the mini-Cave, and Tim’s supposed to be working on a Titans thing, but Jason is having way too much fun bothering him.  It gets his mind off the two cases he seems permanently stuck on.</p>
<p>“Actually, B’s the one who figured out it was a frame in the first place.”</p>
<p>And that is <em>cold</em>, even for Bruce.  “He set your guy free?  Really?”</p>
<p>Tim fidgets in his chair.  “He, uh, didn’t know it was me.  That did the framing, I mean.  And I didn’t want to tell him.  So he thought the guy had been actually framed instead of purposefully framed, and, well.  He got him released.”</p>
<p>Something about Tim seems off all of a sudden, a sort of shiftiness that Jason wouldn’t have noticed if they hadn’t been practically living in each other’s pockets for the past month and a half.</p>
<p>“Who was he?  The criminal,”  Jason clarifies when Tim raises his eyebrows.  “What did he do?”</p>
<p>“That I could find?  Nothing really violent.  Money laundering, mostly, some shady business practices, invested in some drug distribution.  The normal rich Gothamite stuff.  A little worse than normal.”</p>
<p>“But you suspected other things,” Jason says, noticing all the things Tim’s not saying.</p>
<p>“I could probably have gotten him on the money laundering,” Tim continues, voice too light.  “Maybe even the drugs.”  Tim’s smile is shark-sharp.  “Did I mention his girlfriend left town almost as soon as he got dragged off to jail?”</p>
<p>“Ah.”  Well, it’s been a while since Jason shot somebody.  “Want me to pay him a visit?”</p>
<p>Tim shakes his head, but he does think about it for a moment longer than Jason honestly expects.  “Not worth it for you to break your streak.  Besides, Babs has him under surveillance.”</p>
<p>“Something changes, you let me know.”  He’ll have to kill someone again soon enough, might as well be in the service of one of his brothers.  And the way it’s going, looks like Tim might not give him too much shit about it.</p>
<p>“I won’t make that your responsibility,” Tim says and then changes the subject before Jason can ask him what the hell that means.  “Who do you want to frame?”</p>
<p>“A john,” Jason says after just a long enough pause to let Tim know he noticed.  “One of Leah’s.  Well, not hers necessarily, though I’ve got some suspicions, but one of the ones she turned me on to.”</p>
<p>“And you can’t get him on solicitation at the very least?”</p>
<p>Jason grimaces.  “Probably, but he’s rich enough to buy his way out of a charge that minor.”</p>
<p>“Ah.”</p>
<p>Normally Jason would try to bust him on it anyway, just to get him worried, especially since there was a decent chance he could work some sort of statutory rape charge in there as well.  But with all the things Leah wasn’t saying, he got the impression that the guy was the kind to take his embarrassment and frustration out on the people he could drag to his bed.</p>
<p>Things were easier when he could just shoot people.</p>
<p>Tim’s turned back to his computer, that little frown on his face that means he’s chasing something , fingers quick and sure on the keyboard.  The code’s scrolling by too fast for Jason to recognize, though he’s not sure he would anyway.  He’s got some basic computer skills – they all do – but Tim is miles and miles above him. Jason goes back to cleaning his guns, but keeps half an eye on Tim.</p>
<p>He’s gotten through two more guns before Tim smiles, small and pleased, and turns back around.</p>
<p>“Your john, it’s Norman Richards, right?”</p>
<p>“Yes?”</p>
<p>“We can get him on grand larceny and smuggling charges, with a little work.”</p>
<p>“What?”  The surge of something close to bloodlust twists his face into a mad rictus.  “How the hell did you do that?”</p>
<p>Tim ducks his head, expression pleased.  “Looked up his name from your casefiles, hacked into some financial records, and cross-referenced a few things with Catwoman’s recent activity.”</p>
<p>In ten minutes.  He basically solved a case Jason’s been agonizing over for two weeks and a half weeks in ten minutes.  “Kid, you’re the best.”</p>
<p>“Well, I, um, it wasn’t,”  Tim stammers and starts blushing.  Goddamn, how praise starved is this kid?</p>
<p>“Yeah, it was, so thanks.”  He makes uncomfortable eye contact for long enough to show sincerity then goes back to his guns before one of them combusts.  “Send me the info?  You can go back to your thing for the Titans.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,”  Tim says.  It’s quiet for a few minutes before, “Jason?”</p>
<p>“Hmm?”</p>
<p>“Did you ever date a teammate?”</p>
<p>That turns him around quick.  Tim’s hands are locked together in his lap and he’s trying to hide behind his overlong hair.  It makes him seem young, younger, and well… “Kori, sort of?  But that’s Kori, it’s not – she can view sex as just another form of physical affection sometimes.”</p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>He is not the right person for this, seriously where is Dick when you need him, but he’s not going to leave or deflect or – though he would have even two months ago, and isn’t that strange to think about.</p>
<p>“Listen kid, if this is about you wanting to make a move on Superboy, do it.  The teammate thing – everyone dates teammates, you can’t not, really, ‘cause no one else gets it.  And it’s not like he’s going to say no.”</p>
<p>“But –“ Tim bites his lip, thinks.  “How do you know you aren’t compromised?  That you’re making the best decisions for the team and not just your… partner?  That you aren’t showing preferential treatment, or, or trying to keep them too safe, or not keeping them safe enough, or – how do you turn off the part of you that cares?”</p>
<p>Jason laughs at that, full bellied, head thrown back, and he knows it’s the wrong response but he can’t help it.  “Hell, I’ve spent most of my life trying not to care and it hasn’t worked once.  Done a good enough job that I convinced people once or twice, but it ain’t – you’re asking the wrong person.”  He sobers at the wretched look in Tim’s eyes.  “Look, it won’t be easy, and I really am the last person in the world you should be talking to about this, ‘cause I’ve got no clue, but I’ve heard it’s worth it.”  He pauses, thinks.  “I mean, that was Roy talking about Cheshire, or maybe Lian, or that it was worth it because of Lian?  But Kori said something similar about Dick, so – yeah.  Oh! And according to Dinah, it’s all about communication, and she should know, she’s been with Ollie <em>forever</em>.  You can always, er, take it slow?” Tim gives him the most disbelieving look, and yeah, he deserves it. </p>
<p>“God, you are <em>terrible</em> at this.”</p>
<p>“But I’m at least better than Bruce?”  The smile Jason gets at that is worth the awkwardness of this whole fucking conversation.  “Seriously, next time ask Dick.  Or Steph.  Or even Alfred might be better, honestly.”</p>
<p>Tim shudders.  “I refuse to talk to Alfred about this.  And…” he hesitates, drums his fingers on the arm of his chair.  “Have you noticed Dick being weird lately?”</p>
<p>“I’m afraid the meddling urge is completely normal,” Jason deadpans.</p>
<p>“No, I’m serious, he’s been… weird, I don’t know, like he’s not sleeping, or like when he’s lying about something big.”</p>
<p>Ok, he has noticed something, but until all the stuff with Tim he’d been doing his best to avoid Dick.  He’d hoped he just wasn’t remembering right, had avoided thinking too much about it.  He can only deal with one problem brother at a time, and Dick, minus that freakout over the photographs at the start of all this, has seemed pretty stable.  Besides, this is the longest the two of them have gone without some sort of blowup and he’s reluctant to risk that on a hunch.  But if Tim’s noticed something…</p>
<p>“You think it’s the sleeping or the lying this time?”</p>
<p>Tim grimaces.  “I’d say the sleeping, but they tend to go hand in hand, but sometimes the lying is just about whether or not he’s sleeping.”</p>
<p>“Wow, we are messed up.”</p>
<p>“Says the crime lord,” Tim snipes.</p>
<p>“I mean, you could probably be a crime lord if you wanted to.  Little scrawny, take a bit to get people to take you serious, but hey, you gotta put in the work if you want the rewards.”</p>
<p>Jason can see the corner of Tim’s mouth twitch even as he pretends to ignore him.</p>
<p>He leans back, pretends to consider it.  “I mean, you could always hire a body double, some beefed up goon who pretends to be you while you feed him lines from your secret lair.  Got to warn you though, that’s edging on supervillain territory.”</p>
<p>The twitch has gotten worse.</p>
<p>“Of course, if you want to go the supervillain route, upstage my boring old crime lord, the most important bit is picking a name.  How do you feel about the Mastermind?  No, no, too boring.  The Computer Geek?  Ooh, WhizKid’s not bad –“</p>
<p>Tim gives up and starts giggling.  “My name would not be WhizKid.”</p>
<p>Jason throws up his hands, his own grin tugging at his lips.  “Just giving you options.”</p>
<p>“Back to the point,” Tim says once he’s gotten his face back under control. “Help me keep an eye on Dick?  I – I thought it might just be the therapy thing, but maybe not?  This isn’t really my, um area.”</p>
<p>Understatement.  Bats don’t do emotions, except for Dick.  “This isn’t really any of our areas, but yeah, I can keep an eye out.”  Not that he’ll know what to do if he does see something actually concerning.</p>
<p>He should get Babs in on this too.  She’s always known Dick best out of all of them.</p>
<p>It’s not so much a plan as the acknowledgement that they might need to make a plan, but it soothes Jason’s repressed worry.  He goes back to his guns, Tim to his computer.</p>
<p>“Jason?”  Tim says twenty minutes later, once Jason’s got all his guns cleaned and stored.</p>
<p>“Yeah kid?”</p>
<p>“Thanks.”</p>
<p>He doesn't ask for what.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Another week, another attempted therapy appointment, and Dick’s feeling keyed up and combative, the healing stitches on his side itching and trying not to limp from a pulled hamstring.  He’s been waiting for Bruce or Damian to drop by the coffee shop, but it hasn’t happened, and that along with his continued inability to actually sleep means he’s passed exhaustion into that twitchy, caffeine-fueled overbrightness that makes him hyper or paranoid or both.</p>
<p>The guy he’s trying today, a Dr. Neilson, is young and skinny with a striped tie and plaid shirt, no frame glasses and compulsively neat hair.  He’s wearing a simple silver wedding band and cheap-looking tennis shoes and doesn’t seem uncomfortable in his skin the way most nerdy types Dick’s met do.</p>
<p>He’s also very, very precise with the way he adjusts his pen and Dick <em>cannot </em>do that again, especially now.  He gets just far enough in to close the door and starts talking.</p>
<p>“Listen, if it’s gonna bother you that I pace and twitch and talk with my hands, I should leave now.”</p>
<p>Dr. Neilson blinks at him, tilts his head, and says, “That won’t be a problem.  Would you like to sit down?”</p>
<p>Dick would not like to, but it seems polite, so he edges into the room and perches on the arm of a chair as a sort of compromise.  Dr. Neilson doesn’t eye him for it, which is at least a start.</p>
<p>“So, is there any particular reason you are seeking therapy at this time?”</p>
<p>“Part of an agreement with my brother.  He’d go if I would,”  Dick tells him, using the polite small talk tone he learned from Alfred and perfected over far too many galas.</p>
<p>“Ok.  Why don’t you tell me a little about your life then?”  His voice is kind, conversational, and Dick tries to relax.  Can’t.  Starts clenching and releasing his muscles one by one instead, an old trick he uses to keep warm without visibly moving around too much.  He won’t admit to himself that it’s also a test, a way to see how closely this guy watches, and with what kind of interest.</p>
<p>“I live in Bludhaven, but work in a coffee shop in town.  I’ve got three younger brothers.  I’m sort of heir to a large corporation?”</p>
<p>Dr. Neilson doesn’t blink at that last one.  Point to him.  “Any particular interests?  Hobbies?”</p>
<p>Crimefighting, he doesn’t say, though that’s more a second job than a hobby, or maybe it’s a calling, like some of the younger heroes think.  Whatever he classifies it as, he can’t list it, not yet, and he doesn’t do anything else.  Bruce likes it that way.  Dick… isn’t sure how he feels.</p>
<p>“Um, I watch movies with my brothers and a friend most weekends?”  Movies count as a hobby, right?</p>
<p>“What kind of movies?”</p>
<p>“It changes?  We switch off who chooses.  Last week it was a horror movie and I <em>still</em> fell asleep.”  Steph and Tim hadn’t, for once.  Well, Tim said he would have if Steph hadn’t kept shaking him awake, but Dick half woke up at a particularly theatric scream and saw them clutching at each other.</p>
<p>“And you enjoy this?”</p>
<p>“Yeah!”  Honestly, it’s usually the best part of his week.  “One of my brothers makes homemade popcorn, and our friend has the best stories about this crazy girl in her statistics class, and –“  He’s up and moving and doesn’t know when it happened, but he can feel the eyes tracking him.  He edges back to the chair.  “ – it’s, um, great.”</p>
<p>Dr. Neilson frowns, and Dick sits.  This isn’t going to work, he can’t even talk about <em>movies</em> without –</p>
<p>“You can move around if you want,” Dr. Neilson says, interrupting his swirling thoughts.  “Whatever makes you comfortable.”</p>
<p>He nods but can’t make himself relax.  Or talk, which is weirder.  He can always talk, about anything and nothing, chatter filling up the silent spaces in the mansion, joining the cacophony of the Titan’s, making up for too-quiet brothers.  It’s annoying until it’s useful, and it takes more effort than it used to, but he still does it.  Just, not now, apparently.  When it might be helpful.</p>
<p>“So, movies,” Dr. Neilson continues after an awkward silence.  “Do you have a favorite?”</p>
<p>He’s weirdly fond of <em>Dumbo</em> but only watches it when he’s willing to cry, fell utterly, deeply in love with <em>Return to Snowy River</em> when he saw it on TV at Barbara’s as a kid, and never got over Alfred introducing him to Monty Python when he turned sixteen.  He doesn’t know how to tell this stranger any of that, but maybe, if he can, he can work up to telling him the big things.  Or, well, the bigger things.  These days, anything approaching real counts as big.</p>
<p>“I always liked <em>Princess Mononoke</em>.”</p>
<p>“You know I’ve never seen a Studio Ghibli movie all the way through?”</p>
<p>Dick gasps, properly outraged, and launches into an explanation of why that’s a travesty that lasts longer than it should.  When he stops, he jolts at the small smile on Dr. Neilson’s face and the realization that he’s perched on the back of the chair and no one seems to care.</p>
<p>The small “Oh,” escapes him without quite meaning to.</p>
<p>“Why are you here, Mr. Grayson?”  Dr. Neilson asks again, soft, kind, and maybe, maybe….</p>
<p>To hell with it.  Nothing else is working, he can’t sleep, might as well try the truth.</p>
<p>“Hi,” he says, holding out his hand.  “I’m Nightwing.”</p>
<p>Dr. Neilson blinks at him.  “Ok?”</p>
<p>“I – I’m not joking, or delusional, or trying to get attention or – look.”  He pulls up his shirt, shows him the row of stitches along his ribs.  “I got that a week ago fighting some gang members.  And this one –“ He points to the ugly scar above his hip, “ – I got fighting Deathstroke a few years back.  There’s a bullet graze on my right bicep and another hole through my calf.  This one –“ He hikes his shirt up higher to show the shiny burn in the middle of his chest, “ – I got when Raven’s dad attacked us, which she still feels bad about, and I’ve probably got a dozen other visible scars from various fights and there’s a reason I’m always in long sleeves, ok?  I’ve just been lucky no one’s gotten my face, though I’ve broken my nose a couple times at this point but that’s easy enough to make up a cover for.”  Dr. Nielsen hasn’t moved.  “Listen, my brother thought it was hilarious that it took his therapist a month to start believing him, but I don’t like those kinds of games, so if you think I’m crazy tell me now and I won’t come back.”</p>
<p>The doctor opens his mouth, shuts it, clears his throat.  Dick manages, barely, not to bolt.  Definite mistake.  He should have waited, eased into it, not come at all.  “Wait,” the guy finally croaks out, “you’ve been a vigilante for years, in Gotham, and you’re just now seeking therapy?”</p>
<p>Dick laughs and laughs until he collapses on the chair unable to breathe and thunks his head into his hands.  When he finally looks up, Dr. Neilson’s shifting in his chair.  He doesn’t look like Dick’s crazy, at least.</p>
<p>“Um, are you sure you don’t want someone more qualified?”</p>
<p>“You’re the fifth therapist I’ve tried and the only one who I’ve actually talked to.”</p>
<p>Something shifts then, in his eyes, a determination mirrored in the firming of his shoulders.  Dick recognizes it, straightens his back in response.  “All right then,” he says, picking up his pen,  “Let’s get started.”</p>
<p>Dick makes a second appointment.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Another day, another dead kid and Jason pulls out the Arabic curses he learned from Talia as he inspects the body.</p>
<p>He knows, he <em>knows </em>it’s a serial killer, but he can’t figure out who or how or why or any kind of pattern at all and it makes him want to scream or shoot things or even better both at once.</p>
<p>This kid’s had her throat slit, which makes everything all the more awful, blood growing sticky in a pool around her and sprayed across the alley wall.  It’s ruined most physical evidence he can easily pull, but he takes pictures, dozens of them, hoping to catch something he can actually use before calling it in and taking off into the night.</p>
<p>Dick finds him on a rooftop halfway through his second cigarette.  His hands aren’t shaking cause they don’t, but it feels like they want to, and he’s not sure if it’s with rage or something else.</p>
<p>“O sent me,”  Dick says, edging closer.  “Said you might need some company.”</p>
<p>“Where’s the kid?”</p>
<p>“Kon’s with him.  They’re, er staring sappily at each other across a gargoyle probably.”</p>
<p>For once, Dick doesn’t keep talking.  Jason finishes his cigarette.  Considers lighting another.  Lets his hand drop down to his side instead.</p>
<p>“Sometimes, I hate this city,” Dick starts.  “I mean, my parents died here, and O got shot, and every time I turn around some crazy new villain’s spawned or an old one’s gotten free or – and there’s a part of me that knows it’s like this everywhere, that even Metropolis has murders, and Luthor’s a different kind of crazy but he still counts, and… well, there’s crime everywhere, is what I’m saying, but that doesn’t make it any easier.”</p>
<p>“Some things,” Jason forces out, “aren’t just crimes.  Some things are evil, and evil must be rooted out and destroyed.”</p>
<p><em>Crime</em> isn’t the issue.  It’s never <em>been</em> the issue.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Dick says, looking at him with a sympathy he hates, “and you’ve decided to name yourself destroyer.”</p>
<p>Jason turns on him, snarling.  “And what’s so wrong with that?”</p>
<p>“We don’t get to decide who’s evil, Jay.  We don’t get to decide who’s beyond saving.”</p>
<p>Dick isn’t preaching, not the way Bruce does, which is the only thing that saves him from an all-out brawl.  “Yeah, real noble of you.”  He steps away, holds up a hand when Dick tries to follow.  “The man who Talia got to teach me knives had a thing for little boys, which I only found out about because I was bored and practicing stealth and followed him one night to a brothel where I overheard him mentioning the kind of ‘product’ he was interested in.  I killed him then and there, along with the pimp, got everyone out, and burned the place to the ground.  Talia expressed her displeasure, until I told her why.  Found out later the guy’s next trainee was supposed to be her son.”  Dick blanches at that and Jason’s glad, because maybe finally he’ll get it.  “Your nobility, your <em>apathy</em>, it has consequences.”</p>
<p>Bloody ones.  Visceral ones.  He’s seen them, <em>sees</em> them.  Dick… doesn’t.</p>
<p>“I can’t live like that,”  Dick says a long moment later, small, shrunken in on himself.  “I, I was the accessory to a murder once, and it…” He shudders.  “It wasn’t good.”</p>
<p>Jason studies him, the way he’s wrapped his arms around his ribs, the haunted expression on his face, and wants that story.  Knows he can’t ask.  Isn’t sure it would change things.  “Keep your hands clean,” he says finally, gentler than he’s been all night.  “Someone has to.  Just know why I can’t.”</p>
<p>Dick laughs, too sharp, a bark more than his usual ringing giggles.  “None of our hands are all the way clean, but I appreciate the thought.”  He sobers, dares a step closer.  “And I get it, I do, I just worry, ok?  I – I don’t want you to look back somewhere down the line and decide you can’t live with yourself.”</p>
<p>Now it’s Jason’s turn to not-laugh.  “Too late for that.  Done plenty of things I’d like not to live with.  Have to anyway.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Dick says, subdued.  “Can we – any other topic, I’d just – well, for once we didn’t physically fight over this and I’d like to keep it that way.”</p>
<p>Fair enough.</p>
<p>“Did you know Red is financing an art gallery?” Jason says, perfectly fucking happy to change the subject.  “Or something artsy, anyway, he wants it to be a communal space or some shit like that.”</p>
<p>Dick lights up and starts babbling, the strain showing less and less as he gets into it.  “Really?  That’s so cool!  Where’s he going to do it?  Think we could convince him to show some of his photos?  I bet he could partner with the art department at Gotham U if he wanted, maybe get them to teach some classes in exchange for showing their work, or…”</p>
<p>Jason lets it wash over him, the chatter helping bring him down now that the edge of rage has worn off.  He’ll find this guy, he will, and there will be something like justice for the kids who’ve known so little of it.  He’ll make his streets safe again.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Dick had barely slept, haunted by the things Jason had told him, the way he’d looked against the darkness. He’d reminded Dick of Bruce, brooding against the stone, but Bruce had never worn that lost, heartbroken look, and his movements had never been so restless.  Jason’s fists kept clenching and releasing, a pulse Dick was almost positive he wasn’t aware of, and it made Dick clench in instinctual fear.</p>
<p>But Babs had sent him, so he’d done his best, and gone home afterwards to pace and not sleep.</p>
<p>So of course, this would be the day Bruce decided to bring Damian to the coffee shop.  During the after school rush.</p>
<p>“Give me thirty minutes!” he calls over the espresso machine, and wonder of all wonders, Bruce drags Damian over to a table in the corner and waits.</p>
<p>Dick smiles and punches in orders and hands over pastries and helps Leah make cappuccinos and does his best not to watch Bruce and Damian out of the corner of his eye.  So he notices when Bruce pulls out his phone and starts frowning.</p>
<p>Things are slowing down, but they’re not quiet, when Bruce quietly stands, catches Dick’s eye, holds up his phone, jerks his head at Damian, and walks out.</p>
<p>One the one hand, the fact that he left Damian with Dick in public is a good sign.  On the other, the fact that he <em>left Damian</em> is not.  And Dick knows that Damian can take care of himself, that he’s twelve and not five, but all he can see is the carefully hidden flash of disappointment on his face.</p>
<p>It’s another twenty minutes before the coffee shop really clears and Dick feels every aching second of it in the tight straightness of Dami’s spine.  Leah notices, just like she notices everything, the same wary gaze as Jason.  And, like Jason, she says nothing but slides into place in front of the cash register once the last customer clears.  He takes the offer and speed walks to that back corner table, grabbing one of the lemon scones out of the case on the way.</p>
<p>“Scone?” He offers as he sits, nudging it across the table.</p>
<p>Damian doesn’t even glance at it, studying Dick’s face instead.  “I can call Pennyworth.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“To fetch me.  If – you are obviously busy and I have no desire to intrude.”</p>
<p>That’s the dichotomy of his youngest brother, arrogance and self-doubt, both at the worst possible times.</p>
<p>Dick wants to sigh but knows Dami will take it wrong.  “No, I’m glad you came.  It’s slowed down.  Give it a few minutes and I’ll introduce you to everyone.”</p>
<p>“Grayson…” Dami starts, his frown ferocious.</p>
<p>“Really, I’m glad you’re here,”  Dick says before Damian can talk himself into leaving.  “Want some tea?  We have, um –“</p>
<p>“Richard!” He hears from the door and jumps, cursing himself for not paying better attention.  Dami raises an eyebrow.</p>
<p>“Mrs. Seidland!”  He turns on his most charming grin.  “Your usual?”</p>
<p>“Please, dear.”  She tuts at him.  “Are you sleeping at all?  Find someone that makes you want to stay home nights before you burn yourself out with all that partying.”</p>
<p>“But I am the life of the party, Mrs. Siedland,” he jokes as he pulls down her delicate bird-patterned teacup.  “And what smart woman would want a wastrel like me?”</p>
<p>“My granddaughter seems mighty interested in them,” she grumbles.  She carries a cane, dark wood, but only uses it when it comes time for her to sit in the large antique wingback that presides over the center seating.</p>
<p>Dick adores her, crotchety as she can be.  Loves her quiet elegance, the way she keeps her yellow-white hair long and piled on her head, her sharp eyes and the spectacles she keeps on a silver chain around her neck.  She, of course, adores him right back.  Tom thinks it’s hilarious, and will sometimes man the counter so Dick can slip over and chat for an hour or so.</p>
<p>“She must not have inherited your impeccable sense of taste.”</p>
<p>“Considering the supposedly fashionable fanny pack she just bought, it is safe to assume so.”  She sniffs.  “For Christmas I’m getting her a proper handbag.”</p>
<p>Leah lurks behind the counter while Dick finishes steeping the tea, doing her best to fade into the background until a few student stragglers wander in.  Something about Mrs. Seidland must spook her.  Damian, meanwhile, seems curious, which is better than his usual jealous, and Dick takes a chance and grabs a second teacup from a back shelf.</p>
<p>“Your tea, madam,” he says with a flourish.  “And allow me to introduce my dashing younger brother, Damian, who will keep you company while I finish up a few things behind the counter.”</p>
<p>Damian’s eyebrows are all scrunched up and he’s only the smallest twitch from a scowl but he comes over when Dick waves at him. </p>
<p>“This,” Dick announces, “is his first time in Honest Coffee.  Damian, meet Mrs. Anna Seidland.  She owns a pet tarantula.”</p>
<p>Damian’s eyes light up and Dick knows he’ll have at least half an hour before he needs to find them a new topic of conversation, longer if Mrs. Seidland meanders her way into talking about plant-based poisons.</p>
<p>“Who is she?”  Leah hisses once he’s back behind the counter.  “There’s something – she’s safe?”</p>
<p>Dick see-saws his hand back and forth.  “I’m half-convinced she was some sort of cold war spy, but at this point she can only hurt you with her words, though she’s very good at that if you make her mad.”</p>
<p>Leah’s look is dubious, but she creeps out of the corner she’s hid herself in.  “The regulars here are weird.”</p>
<p>“A. It’s Gotham.  B. For all you know, all coffee shop regulars are weird.”</p>
<p>Leah rolls her eyes at him.  He feigns shock but is secretly pleased.  She’s getting comfortable here, finally. Maybe Helen will stop muttering about stray cats that refuse to come in from the cold.</p>
<p>Damian is firing questions at Mrs. Siedland, who seems more than happy to tell him all about Anastasia the tarantula, and some of Dick’s exhaustion sloughs away at seeing him so excited, his rigid posture forgotten.</p>
<p>“How many brothers do you even <em>have</em>,” Leah grumbles, and Dick finds himself laughing for the first time all day.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Norman Richards is arrested quietly in the afternoon, his computer and the contents of his desk seized as evidence, as well as a few “fake” artifacts believed to be far too real.  His money will grant him an excellent lawyer, but the evidence is damning enough to almost guarantee a conviction.</p>
<p>Jason mostly manages to keep the glee out of his voice as he tells Leah about it that evening.</p>
<p>Her voice, when she asks, “He’s gone?  Your sure?” hovers somewhere between hunger and relief.</p>
<p>“Even if he does somehow get off, he won’t be cruising for a while.  Too much surveillance, too much scandal,” he says with satisfaction.</p>
<p>The fact that she lets him see the shudder that runs through her is a nice show of trust.</p>
<p>“Thank you.”</p>
<p>“I’m not just doing it for you.”</p>
<p>“I know.  Still.”</p>
<p>She’s been getting better about turning her face unmemorable, but now, when he glances over, he can’t pull out a single feature.</p>
<p>“You know, I never did ask how you learned to do that.”</p>
<p>The whatever it is drops, revealing her sardonic smile.  “Too much time trying not to be seen.”</p>
<p>Jason viscerally remembers those days.  He was always much better at sneaking than B expected, given how much bravado he learned to throw off once he ended up on the streets.</p>
<p>Maybe also, Jason can admit now, Bruce was surprised because he started with Dick, a showman through and through, the distraction forever and always.</p>
<p>“Any more info on the person targeting street kids?” Leah asks, moment lost to business.</p>
<p>No.  “Pretty sure they’re moving towards uptown.  Maybe escalating?  There’s… I haven’t figured out the pattern yet.”</p>
<p>Leah shrugs.  “We’ll keep our eyes out.”</p>
<p>He appreciates it, but – “Don’t get hurt doing it.”</p>
<p>“We’re careful.”</p>
<p>The wind picks up, early storm gusts, and Jason thinks about calling it a night.  Wet leather’s a bitch, and he’s just cleaned his guns.  Leah shivers.</p>
<p>“How are all of you on coats?  Blankets?”  They’ve got a roof, which is better than he had some cold days, but it’s a drafty old warehouse.</p>
<p>“Ok, for once.  I’ve got a salary now.  Tom even said if I’m willing to go on the books he’ll sign me up for health insurance.  It’s… sort of bizarre, actually.”</p>
<p>There’s hesitancy there, but also a burgeoning hope, one that warms him more than any coat ever could.</p>
<p>“You thinking about going legal?”</p>
<p>She shrugs.  “Maybe?  No one’s looking for me, not like some of the other kids, and I’m just old enough to legally drop out of school, not that I’ve gone in a while anyway.  Pretty sure one of the girls would let me use their address, if I asked.”</p>
<p>They would.  So would several of her coffee shop coworkers, if Dick’s to be believed.  “It’s a step towards getting out of here, if you wanted.”</p>
<p>She shakes her head.  “Got kids to look out for.”</p>
<p>He eyes her, the determination in her skinny frame, less skinny now that everyone at the coffee shop feeds her, looking out over her domain of graffiti and broken brick.  Thinks of the kids who occasionally let him see them, her scouts, wary but not as afraid as he used to be.  Long term, it’s probably not enough, this band of street orphans growing up with nowhere to go, but right now, it’s more than anyone else has ever done.</p>
<p>“Knew from the beginning you had more guts than common sense.”</p>
<p>Leah laughs, even though he wasn’t joking.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Dick rings the Manor’s doorbell and tries to remember the last time he’d actually been to the front door.  He’s been in the cave a few times, obviously, getting patched up and giving reports and checking in, but the Manor proper?  Probably since shortly after he moved back to Bludhaven.</p>
<p>But he’s trying, for Dami’s sake, so he’s made the drive over and told Alfred he’d stay for dinner, even if half of him wishes he was back at Tim’s apartment sharing Jason’s enchiladas.</p>
<p>What he really wants, the thing he’ll never get to have, is him <em>and </em>Damian at Tim’s apartment sharing Jason’s enchiladas, all of them and maybe Steph together in one room.</p>
<p>He purposely doesn’t think about the way Bruce is left out, shoves it down with all the other things about Bruce that have started hurting when he thinks about them.</p>
<p>Alfred opens the door, his small sincere smile as good as a full face grin.  “Master Richard, you know you are always welcome to come straight in, no need for the bell.”</p>
<p>“Just being polite.  Besides, I’m pretty sure I don’t have a key anymore.”  Bruce changes the locks regularly.</p>
<p>“That is easily fixable.  Now, do come in.”</p>
<p>He ushers Dick in to the high-ceilinged foyer that still strikes Dick with a faint echo of the fear and awe he felt the first time he saw it, bigger and taller and <em>more</em> than anything but the circus big top.</p>
<p>“Master Bruce is running slightly behind, but should be here shortly.  Would you like to join Master Damian in the lounge while you wait?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, thanks.”</p>
<p>He runs through the gossip in his head, normal and Justice League, trying to figure out what Bruce could be doing.  There’s nothing going on with the Foundation, and Tim hasn’t mentioned anything at Wayne Enterprises, which probably means Justice League.  Maybe a team meeting?  He’d sat through a few of those playing Batman.  He’s still surprised anything ever gets done.  Even the Titans had been less whiny and they were <em>teenagers.</em></p>
<p>Damian’s sketching on one of the couches when he walks in, and while he doesn’t jump up and hug Dick, he does smile and gesture to the empty seat next to him.</p>
<p>“What’re you working on?” he asks as he takes the seat and puts an arm around Damian’s shoulders.</p>
<p>“Drapery.  The folds are… difficult, but it’s good practice for portraits.”</p>
<p>Dick hums and listens as Dami talks about light curvature and the subtle shading needed to draw fabrics accurately, not reacting as Dami inches closer and closer until he’s pressed against his side.</p>
<p>The kid’s a good artist, with an eye for detail that was probably encouraged for the purpose of sketching subjects and crime scenes, but means that his drawings and occasional watercolor have precisely rendered backgrounds that often are more interesting than the central subject.  Dick makes sure to praise him, like he always has, encouraging any kind of hobby that doesn’t immediately tie back in to crime-fighting.</p>
<p>He won’t get out, none of them ever do, but it’s become even more apparent recently how important it is to have something besides the mask.</p>
<p>He’s starting to think Bruce doesn’t.</p>
<p><em>He</em> didn’t, really, when he was Batman.</p>
<p>Then he shuts off that line of thought like he’s shut off all the similar ones he’s had since Tim made him confront far too many buried neuroses.</p>
<p>Instead, he does his best to focus back in on Damian, who’s telling him about a trick he’s taught Titus and his attempts to train Alfred-the-Cat.</p>
<p>Not that those attempts are going <em>well</em>, but Damian’s never been one to admit defeat.  He’s done research, apparently.  Dick avoids mentioning that Alfred-the-Cat, like his namesake, has never in his life done something he didn’t already want to do.</p>
<p>It’s not long before Damian starts asking – well, interrogating, but it’s an adorable interrogation – about Dick’s life, wanting particularly to know more about his job, and so Dick starts telling him funny customer stories, talking about the regulars.  Tells him to stop by whenever, he can sit and sketch even if Dick’s working.  Dami seems interested in the idea, even if he won’t outright agree to come and visit again.</p>
<p>It’s late enough that Dick’s stomach’s grumbling by the time Bruce shows up, hair damp, and Alfred leads them to the table.</p>
<p>The food is delicious, always is, but Dick finds himself picking at it, clearing his plate just enough that Alfred won’t worry or feel slighted.  Bruce doesn’t notice, barely acknowledges Dick beyond a few cursory questions about Bludhaven crime rates.  He pays attention to Damian, always at least giving the appearance of listening when he talks, so maybe it’s just Dick, maybe he’s mad about something, but that box he’s been shoving all things Bruce in is rattling, threatening to break open.  Soon enough, Bruce and Damian leave for patrol despite the day’s drizzle turning into steady rain.  Dick doesn’t join them, cites the need to be seen leaving the manor as a civilian, but he ends up on a rooftop anyway, soaked to the skin, fighting to shove back realizations too long in coming.</p>
<p>Something hits him in the side.  He barely even flinches, recognizing one of Jason’s gloves. </p>
<p>“You know, if I was still a bad guy, I could’ve so taken you out.”</p>
<p>“I knew you were there.”  He’s always a weird mix of hyper aware and dull on nights like these, the rain icy needles that sting even after he should’ve gone numb.  “Where’s Red?”</p>
<p>“Titans.”  Right, he knew that.  “What are you doing out?  You hate the rain.”</p>
<p>“No, I don’t.”  Sometimes he does, but tonight it’s a reminder, a good one, of the worst way he ever failed, the consequences of that.</p>
<p>“Yes, you do.  You get all weird.  Besides, aren’t you supposed to be a dinner with Daddy Bats and the brat?”</p>
<p>“Patrol.”  And isn’t it typical, that the first time Dick’s been to dinner in months, Bruce shows up late and leaves early and they don’t even talk.  It shouldn’t bother him, didn’t use to, or maybe he didn’t let it.</p>
<p>He thought Bruce was doing better, was trying.  He came to Dick's apartment, even.</p>
<p>“Right.”  This is the point when Jason should leave, but he doesn’t, sidling closer instead.  “Um, you ok?”</p>
<p>No.  “B loves us.  I – I know you don’t believe that, but it’s true, it is.” </p>
<p>Jason tenses.  “What did he do?”</p>
<p>“Nothing.”  The laugh that bursts out of him is jagged, dark, because of course after all the ways Bruce has failed him over the years, he must have done something to cause this crisis of faith.  And Jason is the last person who needs to hear this.  “I – forget it.”</p>
<p>“N…”</p>
<p>“You and B have enough issues, I shouldn’t add to them.”</p>
<p>“Nightwing…”</p>
<p>“It’s fine, I’m fine, you should finish your patrol and get home, get dry. I’m fine.”</p>
<p>“Dick!”  That shuts him up.  “Few too many fines there for me to believe you.”</p>
<p>“You don’t have to believe me.  Go home.”</p>
<p>“Nope.”  He pops the p like it’s bubblegum.  “What did he do?”</p>
<p>He shouldn’t’ve said anything, should’ve shoved it down like he’s always done before, but it’s too late now and every part of him is too numb to even try running away.</p>
<p>Besides, now Jason knows where he lives.</p>
<p>“He didn’t do anything, Hood.”</p>
<p>Jason snorts.  “Bullshit.  I know a Bat-related brood when I see it.”</p>
<p>“No, he didn’t do <em>anything</em>.  He’s – I thought it was enough, you know?  To know that he loved me, that if I called he’d come, but, I – it’s not enough, it’s – I don’t <em>want</em> to call these days, because every time he shows up I’m bracing for the judgement, the, the disappointment, and I – the worst part might be that he doesn’t even notice the way we’ve all pulled away, or maybe he just doesn’t care, and I should want to fix it, I do want to fix it, he’s my – my <em>dad</em>, not that – he loves us.”  He shudders in a breath.  “He loves us, and it’s not <em>enough</em>.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”  Jason’s voice is uncharacteristically subdued, barely audible over the rain.  “Yeah.”</p>
<p>“And I gave him back Robin.  I – he was mine, I loved him, love him, despite – despite the fact that I half-thought I’d wake up with a knife to my throat those first few weeks, but I told myself it was, was better for him to be with his dad.  That I – that my crappy apartment in Bludhaven couldn’t compete with the Manor.”</p>
<p>He flinches when Jason wraps an arm around him before sinking into it, this warmth that doesn’t burn.</p>
<p>“B’s always been good to his Robins.  It’s not – the brat’ll be ok.  And when Bats fucks up, we’ll be there.  Like with Tim.  We’re – you did the best you could.”</p>
<p>“Did I?”  He’s not sure.  Lately it doesn’t feel like it.  Too many plates spinning and he dropped them all.</p>
<p>“Would he have come?”  Jason’s arm tightens.  “If you’d asked him, back in the beginning, to stay with you, would he have said yes?”</p>
<p>He closes his eyes.  “I don’t know.”  It’s one of the reasons he didn’t ask.</p>
<p>“Then you did the best you could.”</p>
<p>Someday he might believe that.  “I – I need to be able to invite him to movie nights, sometimes.”</p>
<p>Jason doesn’t immediately dismiss the thought.  “Talk to Tim.  And maybe start smaller.  Like, we all go out for a drink or something.  Coffee, not alcohol.”</p>
<p>“Ok.”  He starts shivering.  He’s so <em>tired</em>.  “Sorry for – for dumping all this on you.  And thanks.”</p>
<p>Jason rolls his eyes.  “You owe me one of those cinnamon rolls or something.  Now come on, let’s get you out of the rain.”</p>
<p>He lets himself be led.  “You were right, you know.”</p>
<p>“Always.  What was I right about this time?”</p>
<p>Streetlights glint off the eerie red of his brother’s helmet and for the first time, it’s a comfort.  “I hate the rain.”</p>
<p>Jason tugs him closer.  “I know.”</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>He’s trying to decide between mugs or shot glasses when Dick emerges from his bedroom, hair dripping. Jason had all but pushed him into the shower when they got back to the apartment, worried about shivers that didn’t seem to stop.  Dick’s now wearing sweats and a long sleeve t-shirt, but Jason still has to stop himself from forcing him into a blanket burrito on the couch, like he used to do for Roy if he had to act the sniper in the rain.</p>
<p>Dick’s obviously exhausted, eyes glassy and body drooping, and Jason wants to send him straight to bed, but he needs some answers, and this is a chance to get them.</p>
<p>“Hot chocolate or tequila?”</p>
<p>Dick blinks at him.  “Are you staying?”</p>
<p>“You think I’m going to leave you alone tonight?  Hell no.”</p>
<p>“Oh.”  Dick blinks again, before his brain catches up.  “Wait.  Why is a tequila an option?”</p>
<p>“I need to know what happened when you became Batman.”</p>
<p>Dick walks directly to the fridge, pulls out a bottle of vodka, and takes a swig.  Jason’s impressed.</p>
<p>“Why?” Dick asks, pouring a good inch and a half of vodka into one of the two glasses he’s pulled from the cabinet.  He considers, goes back to the fridge for orange juice, and tops off the glass.  “Didn’t we already do this?  It was terrible, I fucked up a lot, end of story.”</p>
<p>“And when Bruce came back?”</p>
<p>Dick takes a sip of his drink, shrugs.  “I slept for a week solid, moved out of the manor, got back into being Nightwing.”</p>
<p>Jason’s missing something, he can feel it, but fuck if he knows how to find out what it is.  Dick’s been able to talk circles around him for years.  He’d hoped that the exhaustion would play into his favor, but obviously not.</p>
<p>Well, brutal honesty worked with Tim.  Sort of.  “I’m tired of pretending nothing’s wrong when it’s obvious you’re not sleeping, and I’m pretty sure whatever the hell’s going on with you has at least something to do with the time you spent as the Bat.  I – let me help.”</p>
<p>“Ah.”  Dick looks at him, gauging his sincerity maybe.  “It’s – the not sleeping thing just happens sometimes.  You don’t – I’m fine.”</p>
<p>Time for a different tactic.  “You know, even Tim’s worried about you?”</p>
<p>“He shouldn’t be.”</p>
<p>Didn’t work.  Ok.  “I’m surprised you didn’t believe him about Bruce.  Kid’s wicked smart.”</p>
<p>Drink.  “Yeah, well.”  Another drink.  Bingo.</p>
<p>“Why didn’t you?”</p>
<p>Dick gulps the rest of his drink before putting the glass down, a surrender if you know how to read it.  “I thought he’d gone half-mad with grief.  He’d lost so many people so quickly, and then Bruce… figured he wasn’t thinking straight.”  He laughs.  “Not like I was doing that great either.”  Another assessing look.  Jason tries to make his body language open and sincere.  “I don’t always sleep well when I’m alone,” Dick tells him, blunt.  Maybe the alcohol’s finally kicking in.  More likely Dick will use that as an excuse in the morning.  “And the fact that I feel vaguely useless right now doesn’t help.”</p>
<p>“You’re not –“</p>
<p>“Useless?”  Dick shrugs, weirdly liquid.  “Tim’s cleaned up Bludhaven, at least for the moment.  You’ve cleaned up Tim.  Damian’s got Bruce, even if he shouldn’t.  Bruce hasn’t ever needed me.  I’ve got no team to run, no crisis to manage.  Which is for the best, considering how often I fuck that up.  I’m not needed.”</p>
<p>That’s so idiotic Jason can’t figure out where to start arguing against it.  He opens his mouth, closes it, has a terrible thought, and blurts out, “Do we need to put <em>you</em> on suicide watch?”</p>
<p>Dick rolls his eyes.  “No.  I’m not that far gone.”</p>
<p>And Jason, who has been patient, and kind, and all the things he’s not at all good at, plus is freaking out about all the ways that statement implies there probably should have been a suicide watch at some point, snaps.  “Well excuse me for being concerned.  Not like I found you soaked and brooding on the edge of a roof after realizing daddy dearest isn’t as wonderful as you always thought.”</p>
<p>His brother’s eyes narrow, and part of him sings at the thought of an actual fight.  “You’re the one who wouldn’t leave me alone.”</p>
<p>“If I had, you’d probably still be there acting like an idiot!”</p>
<p>“So?”</p>
<p>“So we care about you, you fuckstick!”</p>
<p>Dick starts giggling, which makes Jason somehow <em>angrier.</em>  He’s two fingertips away from shouting every obscenity he knows when the laughter turns to tears.</p>
<p>Actually, the laughter was fine, because he has no <em>fucking</em> clue what to do with a crying Dick.</p>
<p>He’s slumped to the floor, noiseless sobs shaking his shoulders, face hidden, the most vulnerable Jason’s seen him with all the blood still in his body.</p>
<p>“Um, would, I don’t know, a hug be helpful here?”</p>
<p>Dick nods.  Jason crouches down and wraps him in what he’s sure is the most awkward hug to ever exist, but Dick still snuggles into it, sobs tapering off.  He pulls away once they stop.</p>
<p>“Sorry.  Always been a sad drunk.”</p>
<p>There’s obviously more to it than that, since Dick won’t meet his eyes, but Jason’s done pushing.</p>
<p>“Next time you’re feeling useless, remind yourself that you’re the only one of us who has any clue what to do with tears.”</p>
<p>That gets a laugh, one that doesn’t end in sobs, thank god.  When did he become the functional brother again, and how can he pass that title on to <em>anyone </em>else?</p>
<p>It’s the work of a moment to take his own shot of vodka, put away it and the orange juice, and rinse out the glasses.  Dick’s swaying now, exhaustion or alcohol or both.</p>
<p>“Bed, Dickie.”  Jason tries to pull him to his feet, but he won’t move.  “Come on.  It’s late.”</p>
<p>“You never ask the right questions.”  There’s something pleading in Dick’s mouth, in his glazed over eyes, and this is definitely the alcohol kicking in.  “No one ever asks the right questions.”</p>
<p>Jason shifts, slow and careful, until he’s cross-legged on the floor in front of Dick.  “And what are the right questions?”</p>
<p>Dick shakes his head. “Nu-uh.  Doesn’t work like that.  You’ve got to ask them.”</p>
<p>He wants to be angry but this feels too important, an outstretched hand that will disappear faster than he can reach out and take it.</p>
<p>He thinks about all the things Dick won’t mention, all the things he glosses over, and fumbles a question into the space between them.</p>
<p>“What’s the thing you most regret?”</p>
<p>“Close.  Try again.”</p>
<p>Jason raises an eyebrow.  “You’re not going to answer?"</p>
<p>Dick shakes his head.  “A list of my regrets would take all night.  Try.  Again.”</p>
<p>Too broad then.  Ok.  He runs through what he knows of the night, B and Damian and rooftops and rain and – oh.  “Why do you hate the rain?”</p>
<p>Dick smiles, a bat-smile, reckless and on the edge of cruel.  “Because it was raining like this the night I was accessory to a murder.”</p>
<p>He’s got to think of this like an interrogation, even if a too large part of him wants to cover Dick’s mouth and tell him to stop.  “Who did you help kill?”</p>
<p>“Blockbuster.  He was a crime lord who had his fingers in most of Bludhaven’s corruption.”</p>
<p>Not a big loss, as far as Jason’s concerned, but… “When?”</p>
<p>“While I was a cop.  Right after I’d moved to Bludhaven.”</p>
<p>After Jason died then.  “Why?”</p>
<p>“Bingo.”  His voice has gone all sing-song-y, like he’s telling a fairytale to children.  “He found out who I was under the mask, threatened to destroy me.  Blew up my apartment building.  Burned down Haley’s.  Was going to tell everyone my identity.  So I stood aside and let her kill him.”</p>
<p>“Her?”</p>
<p>“Wannabe hero who stalked me over the rooftops.  Thought I could train her to be good, to not kill.”  His mouth twists.  “Should have known when she lied to Babs and said I’d slept with her.”</p>
<p>Jason’s reeling, too much information even with the sparseness of detail, but he has to pay attention because Dick’s still talking.</p>
<p>“I had him cornered, was going to take him in, and then she shows up with a gun and tells me to step aside, he won’t ever stop.  And – and I know, somewhere, she’s right, he won’t, and he’s tied up behind me hissing about how he’ll kill everyone who so much as shakes my hand, so I stepped aside and let her shoot him.  Then I let her drag me on to the roof and take her reward in the rain.”</p>
<p>No.  “Her reward?”</p>
<p>“Me.”  The look Dick gives him when he says it tells Jason exactly what he means by that.  If this bitch isn’t already dead Jason’s going to kill her.  “Wasn’t the first time I was too pretty for my own good.”</p>
<p>Jason chokes.  “No, no, not your fault, it is not – whatever she did is not your fault.”</p>
<p>Dick ignores him.  “I didn’t believe Tim because I’d been through it, lost everything only to realize there was still more to lose.  Wanted to help because nobody helped me.  Instead I drove him away to do it all alone.  Right into the arms of his own stalker.  And then I left him alone to pick up whatever pieces he’d lost in his crusade.”  Dick’s gaze is piercing, haunted, and how the hell did all of them miss this?  “In vodka veritas.  Still think I did my best?”</p>
<p>He doesn’t know how to answer that this time.  Is still stuck on the earlier revelations.  “Where was Bruce?  I mean. He found out your identity, Bruce would’ve….”  He’s actually not sure, but he trusts it would've been violent.</p>
<p>“Busy mourning.”</p>
<p>He tries to scoff, but can’t manage it in the face of Dick’s utter sincerity.</p>
<p>“Your team? Babs?”  There must have been someone.  Jason, in the brief moments he allows himself to think about before, remembers Dick as busy and popular and never, ever alone.</p>
<p>“I’d pushed everyone away.”</p>
<p>Something about that rings false, in the same way Tim’s early declarations of fine did.  A lie you tell yourself as much as everyone else.</p>
<p>And Jason thought Dick was the only one of them who’d never been abandoned.</p>
<p>“Tomorrow you’re moving in with Tim.”</p>
<p>Dick shakes his head.  “Not going to be a bother.”</p>
<p>“I’m not giving you a choice.”</p>
<p>There is no fucking way in hell Jason’s leaving him alone in this beige apartment.</p>
<p>“Not your job to worry about me.  ‘s my job to worry.”</p>
<p>Fuck that.  “Should of thought of that before we had this conversation.  Bed, Dickie.  Come on.”</p>
<p>This time, Dick lets him pull him to his feet and lead him stumbling into the bedroom.</p>
<p>“Stay?” he asks as he sinks onto the bed, a request with no appearance of weight behind it.</p>
<p>That should have been its own kind of sign, the way Dick asks almost nothing for himself, and when he does acts like it matters less than water in the jungle, when he’s living in a desert.</p>
<p>“Couldn’t kick me out if you tried.”</p>
<p>He’s going to fix this.  Somehow, someway.</p>
<p>For now, he'll guard Dick's sleep.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>It’s been three days.</p>
<p>He’s talked to Kori, in vaguest terms, but despite her time on Earth most of the nuances of humanity elude her.</p>
<p>He’s talked to Babs, who’s arguably known Dick longest and best, but she shrugged and said something about breaking up with him because she thought he was cheating and how they’d lost touch for a while.</p>
<p>Point is, no one seems to know anything about Dick’s first year in Bludhaven and that’s its own sort of enraging.</p>
<p>Dick had fallen asleep as soon as his eyes closed, curled up like a child, fists balled in front of his face, and then jackknifed awake at the first nearby siren.  It hurt but not as much as the way he’d immediately slipped back to sleep as soon as he’d heard Jason’s muttered, “Safe,” from the other side of the bed.</p>
<p>He's starting to think no one's bothered to watch out for Dick since his Robin days, and that's way too many years alone.</p>
<p>The next morning, he’d packed Dick off to Tim’s despite his protests, and then pulled Tim aside as soon as he'd gotten back from the Titan's and told him that Dick was moving in until further notice.  Tim had searched his face, found what he needed, nodded, and that was that.</p>
<p>Three days, and Dick’s been cheerful and grinning even through what must have been a hell of a hangover.  He’s still not really sleeping, and Jason feels like breaking something.</p>
<p>This serial killer case isn’t helping.  They found another body, and he knows there’s a connection, he can feel it, but no matter how much he looks at the crime scene photos tacked up on Tim’s pristine mini-Cave walls, his brain refuses to find an answer.</p>
<p>There’s four boys and two girls, a mix of races, all between ten and fifteenish, age for street kids is always a guessing game, all different textbook murder types in different locations.  No obvious link.  And it isn’t like street kids don’t end up dead far too often, there’ve been three other bodies found in the same timeframe as these, but one was an obvious mugging gone wrong, another clearly tied to the gangs, and the third an overdose.  These have no discernable motive, and are too neat, too perfect not to be staged.  Jason’s seen a lot of death, dealt plenty of it himself, knows it in a bone deep way that he tries not to think too hard about.  It’s always, always messy.</p>
<p>He paces, flipping one of his knives over and over, the solid thunk of the hilt in his palm lulling him into a sort of mindlessness.</p>
<p>He’s missing something – what is it?</p>
<p>He ignores Dick and Tim clattering down the stairs, bickering, and keeps flipping the knife.  Hair color on the boys is similar, shades of brown, but the girls are dirty blonde and reddish, so it’s not that.  Half are mixed race.  They’ve been found in every one of the middle- to lower-class neighborhoods.  No one’s come forward to identify a single body, not officially, though he knows the first boy was called Rives and the blonde girl Jens.  Eye color maybe?  Someone would have had to get seriously close to –</p>
<p>“Jason,” Dick says, breaking him out of his thoughts.  Dick’s domino’s off and he’s staring at the photos, fists clenched and face pale.  “Jason, what are these from?”</p>
<p>“A case.  GPD thinks they’re unrelated but there’s something – I think it’s a serial killer.  Can’t figure out the connection.”</p>
<p>“Robins,” Dick chokes out, stumbling towards the wall.  “They’re going after kids that look like Robins.  You, Tim, Steph, Damian, Babs,” he ghosts his hand over each picture in turn, leaving it finally on the first photo, the youngest victim, “me.”</p>
<p>Jason can see it now, the hair colors and skin tones and shapes of faces.  “How the fuck did I miss that?”  It’s obvious now Dick’s pointed it out, obvious and terrifying.</p>
<p>“Does this mean someone knows who we are?”  Tim asks from off to the side.  Jason can hear the calculations in his voice, the edges of contingency plans hinted at and lined up in logical order.</p>
<p>Dick shakes his head.  “It’s not – they don’t look like us, not – not really, except for the things that are obvious even behind a mask.”  He can’t seem to take his eyes off the pictures.  “And we’ve grown, most of us, since then, but I remember –“ he chokes, stops.</p>
<p>“Then what are they after?” Jason drops into the silence.  “And who’s next?”</p>
<p>“If he knows about Black Bat, it’s Asian girls, if he doesn’t and is starting over at the top, it’s olive skinned boys about nine or ten.  If he’s escalating…” Tim swallows, continues.  “If he’s escalating, he’ll go after the actual Robin.”</p>
<p>The wounded noise Dick makes says more about his relationship with the brat than anything else has so far.</p>
<p>“That’s – that’s worse case scenario,” Tim says.  “ Street kids don’t put up much of a fight.  He has to know he’s not ready.”</p>
<p>“And when he is?” Dick asks.</p>
<p>“We’ll have caught him before then,” is Jason’s answer.  “We’ll keep the brat safe.”</p>
<p>Not that the brat can’t take care of himself, but it seems Dick could use some extra reassurance, especially with the way he’s resting just his fingertips on the picture of the young boy with Damian’s skin tone.</p>
<p>“Get us up to speed, Jason,” Tim says, also eyeing Dick.</p>
<p>“Six victims, all found in different neighborhoods, each one a textbook example of a different form of murder.  We’ve got shot, stabbed, strangled, bludgeoned, broken neck, and poisoned,” he tells them, pointing to each picture in turn.  “On the surface, they all look different enough to be random, kids older than ten but less than fifteen or so killed different ways, but the scenes are too perfect for them to be anything but staged.”</p>
<p>“Anything strange on the autopsy reports?”</p>
<p>Jason shrugs.  “Police have only done two of the six so far.  Three of them were considered open and shut enough that it was deemed unnecessary, and the most recent was two days ago and not considered priority.  No anomalies I saw.”</p>
<p>“Killer’s timeline?” Dick asks, rejoining the conversation, voice dark and hungry.  He’s still looking at the photos.</p>
<p>“About once a week a new body appears, but there’s no strict schedule.”</p>
<p>Tim nods, eyes unfocused, before walking over to collapse in his computer chair and start typing, files cascading open almost faster than Jason can blink, half of them disappearing in the next moment while the rest shuffle around the monitor in increasingly confusing patterns.  He watches long enough to start feeling vaguely nauseous before deciding Tim has whatever he’s doing well in hand and can yell out any more questions.  He’ll deal with Dick.</p>
<p>Whose eyes are tracking across the tacked up pictures, the same way Tim’s are across the computer screen. For once he’s not smiling, not even the pleasant half smile he tends to adopt in meetings.</p>
<p>“We’ll find the bastard,” Jason murmurs.  “Especially now that we’ve got a better idea what we’re looking for.”</p>
<p>Dicks takes one deep, shuddering breath and turns away from the wall.  “We always find them.  It’s not always in time.”</p>
<p>With that unhopeful statement he strides off for the stairs.  Jason glances at Tim, sees he’s still absorbed, and scrambles after Dick.</p>
<p>“Where are you going?”</p>
<p>“Back out.  I need to warn Dami.”</p>
<p>“And you can’t just call because?”</p>
<p>Dick pulls his domino out of some hidden pocket and sticks it on, pressing hard on the old glue.  “He’ll take it more seriously if I show up in person.”</p>
<p>Understanding strikes.  “You’re gonna spend all night trailing him, aren’t you?  Doesn’t he have a growly Batdad to watch him?”  Something flashes across Dick’s face, a stutter step barely noticeable.  “Don’t you have an early shift tomorrow?  The brat’s probably close to his bedtime anyway.”</p>
<p>“I’ll be fine.”</p>
<p>Jason grabs for Dick’s arm, tired of talking to his brother’s back.  “Dick.  I know for a fact you slept maybe three hours last night and I don’t think you got much more than that any other night this week.  You said you’d turn in early.”</p>
<p>“Can’t,” Dick says, shaking off his hand.</p>
<p>“What the hell are you going to do in this situation that Batman can’t?”</p>
<p>Dick freezes.  “You know,” he says in a voice so devoid of anything it makes the hairs stand up on the back of Jason’s neck, “I was Batman.  And I didn’t do shit.”</p>
<p>The sound of the swear in Dick’s mouth shocks Jason enough that Dick gets away, disappearing out a window before Jason can think of anything else to say.</p>
<p>One way or another it keeps coming back to that, to Batman and all the ways Dick thinks he’s failed.</p>
<p>Or maybe he just believes that to avoid thinking about Dick’s drunken confession.</p>
<p>And Jason’s tried, he’s asked and he’s done the active listening shit and every truth Dick gives him hurts like shrapnel but it’s not enough and he’s <em>tired</em>.</p>
<p>Dick can self-destruct on his own for one night.</p>
<p>It’s less than ten minutes before Steph crawls in through the window, a bag slung over one shoulder.  Jason’s slumped at the kitchen counter, not even bothering to turn on the lights.</p>
<p>“Um, I thought we were doing movie night?”</p>
<p>Right.  It had been part of a diabolical plan to get Dick to fucking sleep.  Steph’s bag probably contains her entire DVD collection.</p>
<p>“Dick left and Tim’s downstairs trying to track a serial killer, so…”</p>
<p>“Ah.”  Steph considers him, brooding in the dark like the worst of his mentors.  “Would <em>you</em> like to have movie night?”</p>
<p>His head pops up at that.  “You’d still want to?”</p>
<p>She grins, without edges.  He likes it anyway.  He didn’t think they were friends, more the sort of comrades that vigilantism is full of, but he may need to reconsider.  He’d like her as a friend, he thinks, wit sharp enough to keep up with him without Tim’s occasional dive into condescension or Dick’s dislike of borderline cynicism.</p>
<p>“You’ll watch <em>Pride and Prejudice</em> with me.”</p>
<p>Which, <em>yes</em>. “I reserve the right to throw popcorn when a character is stupid.”</p>
<p>She snorts.  “Not like I’ll have to clean it up.  You make the snacks, I’ll set it up?”</p>
<p>He nods and gets up to rummage through the pantry.  The microwave popcorn’s easy enough to find, but he wants to make the real stuff on the stove, the way Alfred taught him.  Steph’s humming aimlessly as she presses buttons on Tim’s overly complicated entertainment system.  She swears when the sound turns on at ear busting volume, the swelling strains of the start screen theme filling the apartment.</p>
<p>“Good thing Tim doesn’t really have neighbors.”</p>
<p>“Shut up,” Steph says, finally finding the right remote and viciously stabbing one of the buttons.  The sound lowers to a reasonable level.  “I’ve only done this once without Tim.”</p>
<p>He knows he should pull himself together, go after Dick, or at least go downstairs and pull Tim out of his hyperfocus thing, but he won’t.  He can feel the strain of holding it all together pulling apart his own barely-there control.  He’s started thinking about running again.  A sort of night off is at least better than that.  If he hates himself in the morning, so be it.  Won’t be the first time or the last.</p>
<p>“You have two minutes to finish the popcorn or I’m starting without you,” Steph says from where she’s burrowed into the couch.</p>
<p>“No popcorn for you then.”</p>
<p>“Fine,” Steph says, all mock exasperation as she pulls out the Gotham U sweatshirt blanket that he loves – and will eventually steal, Tim only thinks he can stop him – and throws it onto the armchair he’s claimed as his.  “Just hurry up!”</p>
<p>He does.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>So maybe Jason was right and he shouldn’t have gone out last night.  Nothing happened, except Batman clocking his shadowing twenty minutes in.  Now he’s got the opening shift and even Tim’s death by espresso coffee isn’t helping as much as it should.</p>
<p>It’s just – he can’t, ok?  He lost Jason once and nearly lost Tim and none of his brothers get to die before him, he refuses, but especially not the one who is still Robin.  His Robin.</p>
<p>Darlene doesn’t comment, tired herself from a fussy toddler who’s getting over a cold, but sharp-eyed Leah is their third, and even if she doesn’t say anything Dick can feel her watching.</p>
<p>He ignores it, puts on a smile and a cheerful tone and tries to make sure he never stops moving, not hard with the early morning rush.  Leah’s busy packaging pastries and breakfast sandwiches, and Darlene’s on the register, so he’s making most of the coffees, dancing around the small space as best he can.  It’s second nature by now, most of it, and the few odd orders are easy enough to figure out.</p>
<p>By the time things slow down, it’s been nearly two hours and he can feel himself flagging.  In between two lattes and a cappuccino he squeezes in a double black eye for himself, chugging it faster than he should.  It makes him twitchy, but at least his eyes are open, and he should be able to fit in at least a cat nap before patrol tonight.</p>
<p>He thinks he’s gotten away with it until Leah all but drags him into the tiny breakroom.  Part of him cheers at the show of trust – Leah doesn’t like to be in small spaces with men, generally – but most of him is warily watching her hands and the sharp downward slash of her eyebrows.</p>
<p>“How do we help you?” she demands.  Dick flinches.  She notices.  “Um, please?”</p>
<p>He forces out a laugh.  “I’m fine, just tired.  Stayed too late at the club.”</p>
<p>“Uh-huh.”</p>
<p>Why is he cursed to be surrounded by people who won’t believe his lies?  They’re good lies, polite, believable, allow people to move on with their day happy that they’ve done the good thing and asked.</p>
<p>Bruce, even if he doesn’t <em>believe</em> him, will at least let the lie go uncontested.</p>
<p>Though, maybe that’s not actually good?  He should probably ask his therapist.  That seems like a good question.  And he’s been quiet too long and Leah’s eyebrows have gone from sharp to concerned.  Or maybe they were always concerned but now he recognizes it?  God, he’s tired. </p>
<p>Words, he needs those.  “Really, you don’t need to worry about me.”  He spreads his arms, puts on the smile he uses for galas.  “I’m a carefree young man in my prime.”</p>
<p>She eyes him.  He drops his arms but holds on to the smile.  “You know what I am.”</p>
<p>“Yes?”  He’ll take the subject change, even if it’s weird.  “A kid who needed a job?”</p>
<p>“A <em>street</em> kid who needed a job.”</p>
<p>“Ok?”</p>
<p>“And you’ve got a brother who grew up in Crime Alley.  So you know I, we, don’t rely on anyone if we can help it.  We can’t.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know where this is going?”</p>
<p>Her hands clench, barely, before going loose, but he notices.  He’s not necessarily tracking the conversation as well as he should, but shoulders and hands and hips he watches even when half-dead from blood loss.</p>
<p>“I have people who depend on me,” she tells him, “and I will not let them down and that means I don’t ask for help unless it’s life or death and even then it’s a maybe, because there’s always a price and I will not ask someone else to pay it.  Then I come here and everyone keeps offering and I say no, no, until one day the place I normally clean up isn’t available and I take up Darlene out there on her offer of a shower.  Figure it’s small enough and if she does want something it’ll be a chore or watching Jax, but she never asks for anything.  None of them ever ask for anything, not even Tom really, except to be at work on time and sober.  They just want to help.”  She shoves her hands in her pockets, turns her face away.  “We want to help.  Why won’t you let us?”</p>
<p>He watches her scuff her foot against the floor, tries to swallow.  “It’s different –“</p>
<p>“How?”  Her head comes up, and he’s seen that stubborn expression on too many child heroes, and it aches like an old half-forgotten hurt.  “If I came in shaky and exhausted you’d have sent me in here for a nap as soon as you could, why are you any different?”</p>
<p>“I just am.”  He knows that’s a stupid answer as soon as it leaves his mouth.  Leah’s sardonic look only underscores how stupid.</p>
<p>“Is this a rich boy thing?  Won’t accept charity from the peasants?”</p>
<p>“No!”</p>
<p>“Really?”</p>
<p>“Leah, I wouldn’t – that’s not – “  He doesn’t know how to explain.  “It’s not <em>you.</em>  And I’m fine, I am.”</p>
<p>Her eyes are too old.  “For weeks after he took me I was fine.  Limping, bruised, only half-there, but fine whenever anyone asked.  Fine is a word without meaning.”</p>
<p>Something in what she’s saying, the way she’s standing, reminds him of Donna, of Diana, of those gifted and cursed to carry truth on one hip.  And like with them, he finds himself unable to be anything but honest.</p>
<p>“It’s not supposed to be me who needs help.”</p>
<p>Understanding flashes across her face and her shoulders drop.  “Wasn’t supposed to be me either.  Still needed it.  Need it.  According to Lola we all do.”</p>
<p>It's good she's talking to Lola, who did her own stint as a runaway.  He manages a smile, weak but real.  “Tom would say the same.”</p>
<p>A nod, and then she throws up her hands, breaking the tension.  “What even is this place?  And how does it exist in <em>Gotham</em>?”</p>
<p>“I didn’t believe it either at first.”  Before he’d taken the job he’d gotten Babs to run a thorough check, and even after it’d come back clean he’d been wary.  “Tom given you a mug yet?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” she says, all ducked head and hunched shoulders.  “It’s metal, with all these etched patterns on it.  Pretty.”</p>
<p>She’s so <em>young</em>.  “I bet it is.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”  She shifts, can’t seem to decide whether to curl in or throw her shoulders back.  “So, what – what can we do to help?”</p>
<p>“I’ll let you know when I figure it out,” he tells her, and for once means every word.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>The best way to keep an eye on Damian, to keep him safe, is to patrol with him, Dick decides.  Bruce is willing, if only because he figures changing things up will make Damian a more difficult target if the serial killer does decide to escalate.</p>
<p>Of course, he’s also supposed to partner Tim on patrol, but he thinks about Jason’s comment on starting smaller, and his therapist’s suggestion to try honesty when he can, and comes up with a plan.</p>
<p>It’s early enough that there are still people out on the streets, coming home from late movies and nights out so Dick lets himself be seen, just in flashes, a shadow against the near-full moon and the low clouds reflecting the city’s lights, a warning and a promise.  Damian, behind him, is doing the opposite, moving in the shadows while Dick flickers through pools of streetlight.</p>
<p>They switch for a street or two, to give the impression that they’re each out alone, before going full stealth to reach the agreed upon rooftop meet point, a flat warehouse roof just over the river in Coventry, one of three or four places they rotate through, close enough to the docks to get there quick but not so close that it’s dangerous.</p>
<p>He tells Damian to hide, frames it as a training exercise, and leans against the covered vent out of sight, waiting.</p>
<p>It’s less than five minutes before Tim and Jason appear, trying to come up in his blind spot like he hadn’t seen them three rooftops away.</p>
<p>“Whatever sneak attack you’ve planned isn’t gonna work,” he calls out, not even turning towards them.</p>
<p>He can feel Jason rolling his eyes.  “Showoff.”</p>
<p>“Haters gonna hate!”</p>
<p>His brothers groan.</p>
<p>“I bet we could take him,” Jason mutters, staring Dick down as he turns around.  “What’dya think, I’m big, you’re scrappy, two against one?” They split up, Jason circling towards his right, Tim his left.  That they’re working together so seamlessly makes Dick want to bounce in delight.</p>
<p>“I’d give us decent – “ Tim starts, when Damian comes flying out of the darkness and tries to tackle Jason.</p>
<p>To his kid’s credit, Jason stumbles hard, but Damian underestimates his sheer sense of balance, assuming big equals clumsy, and Jason’s surprise doesn’t last long enough for Dami to find another weak point.  He’s pinned under Jason’s bulk in less than a minute.</p>
<p>“What the fucking hell?”  Dami, little hellion that he is, is squirming and cursing despite being unequivocally pinned.  It’s adorable.  “You know I could crush you, right?  Stop <em>wiggling</em>.”  Jason leans a little harder.  “Seriously, what the hell?”</p>
<p>Tim shrugs, wary, but Dick can’t control his grin.</p>
<p>“You knew he was here!”  Jason accuses.  “You knew, and you didn’t warn me?”</p>
<p>That would ruin at least half the fun.  “Situational awareness, Hood.  The next thing that sneaks up on you might not be small enough to subdue.  And Robin, what did I say?”</p>
<p>It takes him a second, but finally, reluctantly, Damian mutters, “Not to reveal my position.”</p>
<p>“And?”</p>
<p>“Not to attack anyone.”</p>
<p>He waits a moment, but, nope, guess his kid’s not gonna get there on his own.  “So now?”</p>
<p>“I apologize, Hood, for my unprovoked aggression.”  It sounds more like a threat than an apology, but Dick’ll take it.</p>
<p>“Great! Now let him up.”</p>
<p>Jason doesn’t move.  “You’ve been teaching the demon manners? And it’s working?”</p>
<p>“Don’t call him that.”  Dami hates it, not that he’d ever say it out loud.  “And it’s not like <em>you </em>have any manners to speak of.  Let him go.”</p>
<p>“I’m not sure I should?”</p>
<p>Dick sighs and pulls Jason off.  He goes easily enough, immediately getting out of range.</p>
<p>“Yeah, N, what’s going on?” Tim asks, still wary.  “You know Robin and I don’t, uh, work well together.”</p>
<p>“I’m meddling!”  He announces, offering a hand to Damian who ignores it and rolls to his feet on his own before taking up his usual spot behind Dick’s left shoulder.  He does not miss the way both Jason and Tim tense, or the discreet hand signal Tim throws, because despite what his brothers think, he’s not an idiot.  “Peanut brittle.”</p>
<p>Tim relaxes.  Jason does not.  “What?”</p>
<p>Oh right, they haven’t read Jason in on the code phrases yet.  “It’s the only sweet thing I don’t like, and yes, I am myself.”</p>
<p>“<em>What?”</em></p>
<p>“It’s a code phrase,” Tim says.  “Remind me later and I’ll teach you.”  He crosses his arms.  It probably works great on villains.  All Dick can see is thirteen-year-old Tim and his refusal to drink purple Gatorade.  “N, want to explain why you’re acting weird?”</p>
<p>“My therapist suggested it!”</p>
<p>Jason’s look of horror is clear even through the helmet.  It’s <em>fantastic</em>.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Dick continues, “he said if you’re honest about your intentions when people confront you, it’s better.  Leads to more effective communication.  Is it working?”</p>
<p>Jason’s “No,” clashes with Tim’s “Yes,” and Dr. Neilson’s gonna be so pleased, even if this probably isn’t what he meant when he suggested more open communication between him and his brothers.</p>
<p>“That explains the weird, but doesn’t explain why we’re all here,” Tim continues, over Jason’s muttering.</p>
<p>“Bonding!”</p>
<p>Both Jason and Tim flinch, which, not the greatest sign, but neither of them have run away yet.  Dick sighs.  “Look, I know neither of you are fond of Robin, and I get why, but I’m tired of having to hide what I’m doing and who I’m doing it with, so can we all try?  Please?”</p>
<p>A moment, and he doesn’t hold his breath but wants to, because so much depends on this, now, and he’s never had much luck in the past, keeping things together when they’d rather fall apart, but maybe, just maybe…</p>
<p>“Fine,” Tim says.  “What’s the plan.”</p>
<p>Dick beams.  “Rooftop tag?  I don’t think any of us have something that won’t wait an hour.”</p>
<p>If his choice is informed by the giggling joy he remembers when he taught those two how to play as Robins, well, no one else needs to know.</p>
<p>Damian, who’s been watching and judging from behind him, finally speaks.  “What is this ‘tag’?  What is its purpose?”</p>
<p>Something breaks in him, small and sharp.  He never taught Damian.  Never taught <em>his</em> Robin.</p>
<p>“Fine,” Jason says.  “I’m it, twenty count starting now.  One.”</p>
<p>But at least it’s not too late to do it now.  He drags a confused Damian away by the hood and lets his body remember how to soar.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>It was fun and weirdly freeing, to run and jump and grapple without true purpose or danger, to use his body, his skills, for something other than violence or burning off rage.  He’s flushed and grinning when he tumbles on to Tim’s roof, and Tim, behind him, is giggling.</p>
<p>Dick’s escorting Damian back to the manor, but he’ll be back soon enough, and Jason just might let him initiate a hug.</p>
<p>“So maybe not all of Dick’s ideas are horrible.”</p>
<p>“It’s been forever since we did that.”  Tim’s eyes are bright, and he looks young despite the severity of the cowl.  “Did you know that B used to play?  Not, not with me, obviously, but back when it was just him and N.  He called it a training exercise, but everyone knew.  And then N taught me and Spoiler.  Well, not so much taught as forced to play.  He said we were too serious.”</p>
<p>“So you’ve always been like this?” Jason teases, taking off his helmet.  He feels so much, the wind whipping through his hair, cooling his face, the careful laced tightness of his boots, the comfortable weight of his body armor.  He’s not used to this, the way his blood thrums with something not anger.</p>
<p>Tim shrugs.  “Mother preferred me not to engage in frivolities.”</p>
<p>It turns into anger easily enough.  “And what counted as ‘frivolities’?”</p>
<p>“Er, lots of things?”  Tim’s giving him a look, like he should know, like the question’s stupid.  “Mostly things that didn’t have a practical purpose.”</p>
<p>“Like?”</p>
<p>“Most video games, adventure books, really any book that wasn’t in some way educational, TV and movies except for small talk purposes, things that made too much noise, action figures, um… she wasn’t super fond of the photography but I spun it as a way to make me seem well-rounded and my dad thought it was cool.  Oh, she also had a weird thing against non-classical music, but that wasn’t so much that she told me not to listen to anything else as that I wanted us to listen together.”</p>
<p>No wonder the kid’s such a stick in the mud.  Fucking hell.  “And your dad?”</p>
<p>“Didn’t care, before Mother died, and after, well, I’d already gotten used to hiding anything unacceptable that I really wanted.”</p>
<p>He should have dug further into the kid’s history, but he thought he already knew what he needed, rich, lonely kid whose parents died, same story as Bruce, but then kids like that don’t wander into the Narrows for pictures.  He needs to talk to Dick.</p>
<p>Who’s already guilt tripping himself over all the ways he’s supposedly failed them.  Fuck.</p>
<p>He’s about as equipped for this as a bear, but damn it if he won’t try.  “You know that’s not normal, right?”</p>
<p>Another shrug.  He’d hoped to hold on to that giddy non-anger for longer.  “Normal doesn’t really apply to us.”</p>
<p>It’s true, but he never expected that phrase to ring so hollow.</p>
<p>"It's better now," Tim continues.  "I - I've got friends now, who tell me it's ok to like silly things."</p>
<p>He does at that.  Jason understands better why Kon jokes so much around Tim.  "Also meddling big brothers."</p>
<p>Tim smiles.  "Also those, yes."</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Jason vaults over an air vent and lands heavily on the next roof.  Tim’s earpiece went out a few minutes ago and after unsuccessfully trying to hail him, Oracle sent Jason to check it out.  It could be nothing, an equipment malfunction or a wish for privacy, but Tim’s not the type to go radio silent without warning.</p>
<p>The last trace Barbara got was in Robbinsville, near the old yacht club, and Jason’s hoping Tim is just checking out his pet project and not stuck in a battle near the docks, or fallen into the harbor and shorted out his comm that way.  It’s too cold for a dip in that sludge that dreams it’s water.</p>
<p>He jumps another gap, closing in, and almost misses the huddled bundle against the access door, would have if it hadn’t reached toward him.</p>
<p>Tim’s collapsed, legs bent awkwardly underneath him, and he’s smiling, that same rictus grin Jason last saw on another rooftop, and once again he stumbles back.  He knew the statistics, knew the likelihood of relapse and still.  Things had been going well.  Tim seemed stable, happier, had been helping him with whatever the fuck was wrong with Dick.  There hadn’t been – he hadn’t seen –</p>
<p>“Let’s get you home.”  Resigned, he tries to pull Tim to his feet, only to find him ragdoll limp.  “What the hell kind of variant did you take?”</p>
<p>Tim moves his head in what might be a negation, a mix of garbled syllables and giggles pouring out of his mouth.</p>
<p>“You really fucked yourself up,” Jason mutters, pushing down whatever yawning feeling wants to take over his chest as he scoops Tim into his arms.  The rage, if that’s what it is, is not green-tinged this time.</p>
<p>Tim struggles, as much as he can when none of his muscles seem to be obeying him, the noises he’s making turning sharper, more panicked.</p>
<p>“Calm down kid, I’ve got you.”</p>
<p>He’ll call Dick when they’re back at the apartment, figure out next steps.  Paired patrols again for sure, though actually, wasn’t Kon supposed to be –</p>
<p>He crumples with a cut off scream as something slams into the side of his knee.  He twists, trying not to land on Tim, landing instead on his back and staring up into mad eyes and a red painted, cackling mouth.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>“Nightwing, I need you in Robbinsville now,” Dick hears halfway through his pursuit of a purse snatcher near the Diamond District.  He swings around a lamp post to change direction and is halfway up the nearest fire escape before he thinks to ask for details.</p>
<p>“Who, what, where, O?”</p>
<p>“Red Robin, Red Hood.  Red Robin’s comm cut out and I sent Hood to check him, heard a scream.  Now all I can hear is heavy breathing.  Last known location is a rooftop across from that consignment store on Front Street.”</p>
<p>Dick pushes harder. “I’m still a few minutes out.”</p>
<p>“I’ll let you know if I get Hood.”</p>
<p>The line goes quiet and Dick concentrates on landings, momentum, moving as fast as he can.  Panic gets people killed, he’s had that drilled into him enough, but it’s hard when it’s his brothers, people he cares about.  He knows he must be closest or Barbara would have called someone else but it’s still too far.</p>
<p>The tiny part of his brain that’s not focused on movement or panic suppression starts wondering what’s bad enough to take out the Red Hood, and none of the options are good.  Sheer bodily control keeps him from stumbling when he lands on an unfortunate lump of concrete, and the need to keep his feet wipes out any half-formed theories.</p>
<p>He will not be too late, not again, not for Jason. He repeats it like a mantra that grows more desperate the closer he gets, three blocks, two, and there’s Front Street.  He slows, listening, even as everything in him screams to rush in.  There’s no smog tonight, he should be able to see, but the one flickering streetlamp still working isn’t doing much.  He takes a few more steps, straining, and it’s right as he reaches the edge that he hears a distinctive cackle and bolts towards the noise.</p>
<p>“O, it’s the Joker, code red, possible Arkham breakout, I repeat, code red,” he hisses, fury and fear driving him forward.</p>
<p>There’s a snarl, Jason’s, and he’s alive, conscious, with it enough to put up a show of defiance.</p>
<p>Barbara’s swearing in his ear, low enough that he tunes it out, trusts that she has the message. He can see, now, the rooftop swarming with people in clown masks, Jason’s shiny helmet twisting and bobbing as he dodges punches and throws his own, the Joker at the back of the pack twirling a crowbar, a fucking <em>crowbar</em>, and there’s no sign of Tim but he can’t think about that now because Jason’s not moving quite right.</p>
<p>He lands behind the Joker and gets in one glorious, golden punch before the sound of the Joker’s scream makes most of the clown goons turn and swarm him.  He pulls out his escrima, knocks the first one back into his buddies, but then it’s just hit and dodge and try not to get stabbed by the shivs half of them are carrying or hit by the bats the other half have.  When he can he works his way toward Jason, who still hasn’t moved away from the exhaust vent he’s backed up against, but more often he has to move whichever direction keeps him safest, whether or not that’s the direction he’d like to go.</p>
<p>He’s getting tired, pushing into that rage to keep himself going, when the goons all turn and run, scattering down the access stairs and fire escape.  He pursues just far enough to make sure they’ll keep going.  It’s weird, almost like they were signaled, but he’ll take it.  He turns back to Jason, who still hasn’t moved, and now that Dick can pay attention he notices that he’s not putting any weight on one leg.</p>
<p>He rushes over, gets under his shoulder, takes some of Jason’s weight.  It’s then that he notices the tremors, the gasping, panicky wheezes.</p>
<p>“Hood?  Hood, talk to me.”  Jason’s wire-taut, his fist clenching and releasing against Dick’s collarbone.  “Breathe, come on, he’s gone, I’ve got you.  Just breathe.”  Dick takes a few exaggerated breaths, slow and deliberate. </p>
<p>After a moment Jason manages one long shaky inhale and immediately half collapses on to Dick, who plants his feet and refuses to stagger.</p>
<p>“There we go, it’s ok.  It’s ok.”  Dick doesn’t want to ask, not when there’s still no sign of Tim, but he has to – he needs to -   “What happened?”</p>
<p>“He – he took Tim.”</p>
<p>Dick’s head goes blank, then a startling, pulsing, red, and he barely notices when his voice drops into the growl he used as Batman.  “Then let’s go get him back.”</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Of course, it isn’t that easy.  Jason outweighs him, can barely put any weight on his right leg, and seems to be riding the edge of a panic attack.  Maneuvering him down the fire escape and the block and a half over to his motorcycle takes more energy than Dick really has left, but he manages, talking rapid fire to Babs in between slow steps and reassurances.  The key clicks he can hear faintly through the comm as she starts scanning security cameras and trying to turn on remote trackers is soothing, keeps him, barely, from his own panic.</p>
<p>He almost tips over the edge again when he remembers.  “Where’s Robin?  You need to – send him home right now – he can’t – this is probably targeted –“</p>
<p>Babs makes a distracted shush noise at him.  “He’s not out tonight.  B’s off, and the threats to stay in or else got pretty creative.”</p>
<p>“And Spoiler?”</p>
<p>“Headed to your closest safehouse.  Meet up and regroup.”</p>
<p>Some of Jason’s tension dissipates, which means he’s at least still tracking well enough to listen in on comms, even if he’s not speaking.  Means Dick won’t have to tie him to the bike they’ve finally reached.</p>
<p>Getting him actually on the bike is awkward and obviously painful but it happens and then he’s muttering “hold on” and taking corners as fast as he can with a passenger who can’t quite lean into the turns.  He still gets to Tim’s faster than is legal.</p>
<p>Steph’s waiting for them at the end of the tunnel that connects to Tim’s normal looking garage, still and unblinking.  Dick doesn’t know how to tell her he’s failed again. </p>
<p>He opens his mouth to try but she shakes her head.  “Babs filled me in.  How bad are the cuts?”</p>
<p>“Um..” He glances down at himself, only now noticing the tears in his uniform where some lucky goons got in a hit around his armor.  “Minor enough that I shrugged them off?”</p>
<p>Steph rolls her eyes.  “I’ll take it.”  She nods towards Jason.  “Him?”</p>
<p>“Something’s up with his right leg, and he’s pretty out of it.  Shock or dissociation, not sure which.”  Jason’s always, always, covered fear with anger.  The passiveness is getting scary.</p>
<p>“Let’s hope Tim’s got an x-ray hidden somewhere,” she says as she takes Jason’s other side.</p>
<p>Exhaustion’s starting to hit now that someone else is there, the adrenaline comedown leaving him shaky and hurting, wounds starting to smart and ache.  He pushes through like he always has, like he was taught, but the countdown’s ticking now.</p>
<p>Half an hour later, he’s inhaled three granola bars and is stitching up the worst of the cuts while Steph straps a brace to Jason’s knee.  Bab’s hasn’t found anything.  Alfred’s confirmed that Damian’s at the manor.  No one can get in touch with Kon.  He’s tried calling Bruce twice and gotten a busy signal both times.  Probably off world.  Normally, the next step would involve a nap, but Tim’s gone and there’s no time.</p>
<p>He finishes off the last few stitches, flexes to make sure they won’t tear, and gets up to continue the fight.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Dick’s hands are steady as he stitches himself up, and Jason envies that appearance of calm.  He hasn’t been able to stop the minute tremors in his.</p>
<p>Steph’s strapping a brace to his knee, dislocated but not broken, though she says it’s likely some of the ligaments are torn or badly strained.  The next few weeks are going to suck, but not broken means he can walk on it without too much risk.  Not that it being broken would have fucking stopped him, but he’d like to keep basic mobility, thanks.</p>
<p>The sheer fact that Dick dropped the Batman voice as soon as they reached Tim’s cave has done a lot to help him pull his shit together, but there’s a screaming in his bones that won’t leave, that he doesn’t think has ever left, red-tinged the color of that bastard’s smile.</p>
<p>The bastard who has Tim, and even thinking about that makes rage and fear rise up in near equal measures until he can’t speak for the building scream.</p>
<p>This time, the clown’s dead.  He’ll leave bloody anyone who gets in his way, and damn the consequences.  The Bat can run him out of Gotham as long as Tim is safe.  Dick can disown him again, Tim can start looking at him with suspicion, he doesn’t care.</p>
<p>“I’m going to see what information I can shake out of the street thugs,” Dick says, standing and stretching to test his stitches.  “Someone’s bound to know something.”</p>
<p>“I’m coming.”</p>
<p>Both Dick and Steph stare at him.</p>
<p>“You can’t walk.”</p>
<p>“I can limp.”  He tries to stand and prove it, only to have Steph push him back down.</p>
<p>“No,” she says, no uncertainty of being obeyed, and there’s a flicker of pride in him at her guts but now is not the time.</p>
<p>“Which of us has moonlighted as a crime lord?  That’s right, neither of you, I’ve got the better contacts, now let me up.”</p>
<p>Dick crosses his arms and turns mulish.  “You can’t contact any of them from here?”</p>
<p>“Not and put the fear of me into them the way I’d need to.”</p>
<p>Steph scoffs.  “Because your crutches will be so intimidating.” She and Dick exchange a look.  He forces down the green-tinged need to strangle them.  They don’t have <em>fucking </em>time.</p>
<p>“Or are you just afraid I’ll go too far?  Little Timmy’s life not worth getting your hands bloody?”</p>
<p>Something in Dick’s face shutters as Steph’s hands go stiff against him.  Looks like they’re finally getting somewhere.  He’s always known what buttons to push.</p>
<p>“Afraid I’ll start killing again, end your little rehabilitation project?  Too late.  Liars and rapists and thieves, I’ve let them all live, given them over to your idea of justice, but the clown was dead as he soon as he escaped.”  Standing hurts, but he manages.  “Fast or slow’s the only question left, and that’ll depend on what state Tim’s in when I find him.”  He smiles, wishes for blood on his teeth.  “Let me loose, or watch as I rip this place apart.”</p>
<p>“Jason –“ Dick starts, and apparently it wasn’t enough.</p>
<p>“Or are you choosing the fucking Joker over Tim like Bruce chose the bastard over me?”</p>
<p>Dick sucks in a breath as his eyes go wide.  The thing in Jason’s chest grumbles in satisfaction.  Somebody ought to hurt.</p>
<p>Steph though, she doesn’t seem surprised, and the part of Jason that isn’t calculating rage wonders how Bruce fucked her over.</p>
<p>He gives the knife one more twist.  “Who do you think gave me the scar on my throat?”</p>
<p>Dick’s eyes flick to the faint scar visible above his collar.  The flinch is minute, but it’s there, and that’s victory.  But his eyes close for a moment, two, and when they open it’s Jason who feels like flinching at the pits of rage they’ve become.</p>
<p>“Where do you keep your spare Beretta?”</p>
<p>“What?” Jason and Steph say in near unison.</p>
<p>“Beretta 9mm.  I know you prefer a Glock, but I always thought the Beretta’s were more accurate.”</p>
<p>Jason would be less shocked if Dick admitted to sleeping with Wonder Woman.  It pours cold water over some of his bubbling rage, but that just leaves the fear to swallow him instead.</p>
<p>“You forget,” Dick says, “I was an officer for a while.  My range scores were better than most of the sergeants.”  When they continue to stare at him, he smiles without any of his usual joy.  “I don’t care if the Joker survives the night.  But if you think for <em>one second</em> I’m going to let you go after him half-cocked and injured?  I’ll kill him myself before that happens.  So sit your ass <em>down</em>.”</p>
<p>Jason sits.  So does Steph.  They can’t not.  Jason knows, somewhere, he should be annoyed, angry at the way he obeyed automatically, but right now Dick’s asking for a gun and half-offering to kill someone.  He can be mad later.</p>
<p>“Now, I am going to beat up some lowlifes while you stay here and do your growly threatening thing over the phone.  Spoiler’s on call for anything unexpected.  Got it?”</p>
<p>He doesn’t like this plan.</p>
<p>“And if you find him?” Steph asks.</p>
<p>“<em>When</em> I do, I’ll take him down.”</p>
<p>“So we can’t go alone, but you can?” Jason growls.</p>
<p>“Alone and <em>injured.</em>”</p>
<p>“I just watched you stitch yourself up!”  He can’t worry about Dick <em>and</em> Tim.</p>
<p>“Jason,” Steph interrupts, putting a hand on his shoulder, “you can’t walk.  No,” she says, before he can tell her off, “you can’t.  Dick can.”  She raises her voice.  “Though if he thinks I’m not going with as back-up he’s wrong.”</p>
<p>Dick nods at her in acknowledgement without ever taking those burning eyes off Jason.  “Hood, <em>Jason</em>, let me do this.”</p>
<p>“It’s not just Tim.  Kon –“  All of them know, even if no one’s said it, that Kon wouldn’t have left Tim without a hell of a fight.</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>“If that bastard’s got something that’ll hold him –“</p>
<p>“I know, Jason.” Dick's voice is too gentle.</p>
<p>He hates this.  “If you get killed or captured I’m not letting you have any of my potato enchiladas ever again.”</p>
<p>The ghost of a smirk.  “I won’t.”</p>
<p>And then he’s gone.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>It’s been over two hours now and there’s still no sign of Tim.  Jason’s called and threatened and thrown things and desperately wants to pace.</p>
<p>He’s alone in the stupid, shitty, too-bright mini-Cave so technically no one could stop him.</p>
<p>His phone rings.  He answers without even looking at the screen.</p>
<p>“Hood?”  The voice is young, familiar.  “Hood?”</p>
<p>“Who is this?”</p>
<p>“It’s Leah.”  His gut clenches, because he forgot, how could he forget, they wouldn’t have access to the normal warning channels –</p>
<p>“Leah, you need to get all the kids inside and make them stay there, Joker’s loose.”</p>
<p>“I know.  We saw him.  We know where he is.”</p>
<p>He freezes, and there’s green at the edge of his vision, clogging his throat, and he doesn’t care if he ends up with a permanent limp, he will end that fucking clown.</p>
<p>“Hood? Did you hear me? We know where he is.”</p>
<p>“Where?”</p>
<p>“The old yacht club.”</p>
<p>That <em>bastard</em>.</p>
<p>“Hide.  Take the kids and hide.”  He hangs up.  Lets the rage burn him clean.  Turns on the comm.  “I’ve got a location.”</p>
<p>“Where?” Nightwing growls, Spoiler a second behind.</p>
<p>He tells them, watches Oracle throw up schematics, hears death in their voices.  Gets up.  Limps to his equipment.  Loads a gun.</p>
<p>The Pit demands blood.  Tonight, he won’t fight feeding it.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>The old yacht club is dark, windows still boarded, signs of construction in the half-full dumpster near the big double doors, in the small trailer left in the cracked parking lot.  The water smells of sea, brine and the edge of rot familiar and comforting.</p>
<p>Dick had sat, legs swinging, on one of the mini-Cave tables while Tim hesitantly explained his plans for the place, pulling up building plans and half-constructed vision statements and full of more quiet excitement than Dick can remember hearing from him since his first months as Robin.</p>
<p>If there wasn’t already rage coiled cold in his chest, this would be enough to kindle it.</p>
<p>Spoiler lands next to him, crouched low, face shadowed.  “Anything?” she breathes.</p>
<p>Dick shakes his head.  No sign of henchmen, of struggle, of light even.  If the information came from anyone else, he’d think they’d been led on a wild goose chase, but if Leah says she knows, she knows.</p>
<p>“I’ll take the roof, you sneak in the back?”</p>
<p>He nods.  They should probably come up with something better, but he can feel the clock inside him ticking down the hours, minutes, Tim’s been with the Joker.  He tries to remember how long Jason lasted and hates himself for it.</p>
<p>Spoiler takes off, working her way around until she’s across from the fire escape.  He sees her vault on to it and disappear, counts to ten, jumps a couple of roofs, and drops in to the back alley.</p>
<p>Even the old style grandeur of the building hasn’t prevented Gotham from approaching as close as it can get, a fact he’s grateful for, shadows and old junk aplenty to hide behind as he sneaks towards the back door.</p>
<p>It must have been a staff entrance once, now pasted with a construction permit and locked when he tests the handle.</p>
<p>Not a good lock, considering how easy it is to pick, a fact he’s grateful for in the moment and will be sure to warn Tim about if – when – they get out of this.</p>
<p>Definitely a staff entrance, leading as it does to a cracked linoleum and beige breakroom, a few old lockers off to the side, gaping open, a half-stuffed couch on the other, a metal table and chairs.  He listens, tries to remember the blueprints Barbara had flashed him before his comm started going fuzzy half a block out.</p>
<p>Joker, it seems, got his hands on a jammer.  At least it explains why Tim hasn’t set off an emergency beacon.</p>
<p>No noise.  He creeps onward, working his way to the big open room at the front, the one Tim planned to turn into a gallery and event space, that used to hold boats in the winter and host parties in the summer.</p>
<p>There’s nothing and no one, just like outside, and he feels goosebumps break out, starts moving softer, straining harder.  Everything screams trap or distraction, and he can’t afford either.</p>
<p>He’s moved away from the staff areas into the club proper, linoleum replaced by once-nice carpet and scuffed wood floors, the signs of past people more obvious in plaster boot prints and left behind hand tools, caged lightbulbs hooked on molding and looped over old fans.</p>
<p>He should have heard <em>something</em> by now.</p>
<p>Dick regrets that thought when a hair-raising cackle echoes out from nearby.  He moves faster, no longer checking every doorway, following the sound of the laugh that haunts Gotham.</p>
<p>If Tim’s not here – if this is just another trap – or worse, if he is and lifeless – Dick can’t do this again, can’t lose another brother, another person, and to hell with Bruce and his rules.  He’ll take whatever punishment the universe decides on this time for breaking his ultimate promise if it means Tim goes home safe and sound.</p>
<p>In the blueprints Babs dug up, there was a door that led to a side room that could be opened up and used as a bar for parties.  It should be right… there.  He pulls out a batarang, opens the door, and drops down behind the tall counter, crawling until he’s up against it before daring to peek over the top.</p>
<p>Tim and Kon are both in chains, hung from the rafters in the ceiling.  Tim’s giggling through a gag, the Joker gas giggle, but he’s breathing, and something releases in Dick’s chest.  Kon appears to be unconscious, which is maybe why the chains are actually holding him, but then the Joker skips over and spins him and Dick can see the glowing green dagger sticking out of his shoulder.</p>
<p>“Grown-up birdy brought a friend, he’ll be dead too in the end!” Joker cackled.  “Or maybe sooner, not looking so super and all you can do is laugh!”</p>
<p>The chains rattle as Tim struggles.  Dick’s done watching this.  The Joker’s in range, and Spoiler should be somewhere nearby, she can deal with Tim and Kon.  He throws the batarang, pulls out two more, and throws them in quick succession.  The first lodges in the Joker’s shoulder, the second his thigh.  The third just nicks his ear.</p>
<p>He turns his head but doesn’t move away from his prisoners.  “Batsy!  Finally come to play?  I’ve been leaving you presents for weeks!”</p>
<p>“Not quite,” Spoiler says as she falls from the ceiling, landing in a roll and springing up between the Joker and Tim.  Dick can’t help his bark of laughter.</p>
<p>“Girl-bat!  Did you see my presents?  One looked just like you!” Joker says as he adjusts to keep this new threat in his sights.</p>
<p>Oh god, that means…</p>
<p>“I’ve been leaving little Robins all over the city!”</p>
<p>Dick’s rage has always been the cold of frostbite, but right now it’s a blazing forest fire of red, red, red, as he vaults over the counter and rushes to attack.  He gets halfway there and trips over a hidden wire, electrified to the point that his body jerks uncontrollably and he falls, twitching.  The Joker laughs.</p>
<p>“The big birdy too! Two more and I’ll have the whole set!  Any chance the little one is hiding somewhere?”</p>
<p>Dick heaves himself to his feet, far too aware that the residual tremors will prevent most acrobatics, not to mention mess up his aim, but Tim and Kon need him and he’s fought with worse.</p>
<p>Spoiler tilts her head, the smallest of check-ins, and he manages a shallow nod.  Sometimes he forgets Stephanie was Robin once, but now, as she counts down using the subtle signals Bruce taught them all, he’s infinitely grateful.  A twist of her wrist and they both launch themselves forward, towards the cackling Joker.  He dodges, of course, but they planned for that, and Spoiler gets in a solid right hook as the Joker darts away.</p>
<p>“Ouch!  Birdy has teeth!”  One of the worst parts about fighting the Joker is that it’s almost impossible to tell when he’s hurt.  He’ll smile and laugh as you break his bones, Dick knows, so now he can’t guess if the mad grin is because he’s got back-up on the way or just because.</p>
<p>With both of them between the Joker and his prisoners, Spoiler pulls out her lockpicks and starts working on Tim’s chains.</p>
<p>“No, no,” he wheezes out as soon as Spoiler yanks out the rag stuffing his mouth.  “Super… boy… dagger…”</p>
<p>Dick edges closer to Superboy, out cold and still slowly spinning, without taking his eyes off the Joker.  He seems content to watch them for now, which is never good, and minor electrocution aside, this has been much too easy.  He yanks out the dagger, unable to be gentle, banking on the fact that super healing will kick in once the kryptonite’s gone, and throws it as far away as he can manage.  He’d pull out his own lockpicks, but his muscles still aren’t completely cooperating, so he takes up a guard instead and waits for the next stage of the Joker’s plan.</p>
<p>Spoiler’s nearly gotten Tim free when the Joker starts cackling, high pitched and manic, and yells, “Now boys!”</p>
<p>Men in clown masks pour in from every door, their footsteps almost covering the hiss of releasing gas canisters.</p>
<p>“Rebreathers,” Dick orders, tugging his on and squaring himself up to the oncoming threat.  He’s got at least one more brawl in him, even if his body wants to protest otherwise.</p>
<p>Tim’s free, shaky and still wheezing laughter, but free, and Spoiler hands him a spare staff she’d apparently stuffed under her cloak as they move back to back.  Dick can’t decide if that’s optimism or preparedness.</p>
<p>There’s at least twenty men, maybe more, longer odds than Dick would like, but not completely impossible. Probably.</p>
<p>Spoiler makes the first move, throwing out an arc of batarangs, prompting several cries of pain and slowing the rush of men as they trip over their injured comrades.  Somehow, Tim’s kept his bandoliers, even if his belt’s gone, and he makes use of the smoke canisters he loves, turning his and Spoiler’s silhouettes into twisted, half-seen shapes.</p>
<p>So far, no one’s shot at them, but Dick keeps an ear out for the sound anyway as the goons reach him.  It’s the same shivs and bats as the last group, but these men seem fresh, if generally untrained.  Dick uses that, takes any sneaky opening he can find, and manages, barely, to hold his own, though not without taking more hits than he’d like.  He’s backed up against Kon and his chains, feeling a little bad about using him as a half-human shield, but it means he feels the first twitch of consciousness and with it a surge of hope.  If they can just hold their own a while longer…</p>
<p>He sees flashes of Tim and Spoiler through a second round of smoke, groaning and unconscious henchmen at their feet, shifting slowly towards where the Joker claps his hands in glee.</p>
<p>Kon moves again, waking up, and they’re going to make it, they will….</p>
<p>Which is when the first gunshot rings out.</p>
<p>Dick whips his head around, because no, no, if one of them got hit, that’s it, there’s no more backup coming, not for hours, if then, and Spoiler’s probably well enough to dodge but he and Tim can’t and he has no idea if Superboy’s actually invulnerable right now, and the Joker’s laughing again, and <em>no.</em></p>
<p>They are not dying here tonight, none of his people are dying here tonight.</p>
<p>He takes one long breath, pulling up the very last jagged pieces of his held back reserves, and unleashes every bit of rage and pain and sorrow and fear that he has, no longer caring if these men walk away whole.</p>
<p>The men falter, confused and frightened by his sudden ferocity, and he takes advantage, pushes forward, the gunshots now a steady bark in the background.</p>
<p><em>One shooter</em>, he thinks, <em>if I can just…</em></p>
<p>And then he’s clear, stumbling free from the mass of his attackers.</p>
<p>The room echoes, shouts and cries bouncing off wood floors and hard walls, that awful laughter over everything, and between that and the remnants of smoke Dick can’t tell where the shooter is, can’t orient himself towards them.</p>
<p>So he goes for the next best target and attacks the Joker.</p>
<p>He’s not expecting it, too focused on Tim and Spoiler’s fight, which is basically the only reason Dick gets as close as he does.  The Joker’s not a fighter, not really, but he’s scrappy and mean and his nails might as well be claws, and Dick’s on the other side of exhausted with spasming muscles.  The fight’s more even than it should be.  He gets him in a headlock but not before the Joker’s managed to tear his rebreather off.</p>
<p>“Call them off,” he rasps, trying to breath shallow, hoping whatever gas the Joker released has dissipated.  “Do it now.”</p>
<p>“Nope!”</p>
<p>“Now!”</p>
<p>“Or what?”  The Joker’s nails keep scratching at his arms and hands.  “You’ll hurt me?  Break an arm?  Ooh, a leg!  That’s better, makes it harder for me to get away.  Whatcha gonna do birdie?  Can’t hurt me too bad, can you?”</p>
<p>“I killed you once,” Dick growls, trying to guess how long he has, how real this threat is, “I’ll do it again.”</p>
<p>“Too late!”  Somehow, somewhere, the Joker found a knife, and he stabs it into Dick’s side.</p>
<p>It hurts, of course it does, but normally it wouldn’t be enough to make Dick let go, except then the Joker twists the knife, and his abused body arches away from the pain, giving the Joker just enough room to slip out of his hold.</p>
<p>Dick lunges, but it’s not enough, and he stumbles, almost falls as the Joker dances out of his reach.</p>
<p>Once again, he falls short.  Once again, he’s not enough.</p>
<p>“You forget, you birdies, that I’m untouchable, the beating heart of this city.  It loves me, needs me to make it laugh, to dance with the Bat and make it sing, make it <em>something</em>.  Lock me up, throw away the key, and still and still I’ll make the last joke, have the last laugh.  The city bleeds me, needs me, and soon you’ll all be obsolete, a set of dead birdies on display.”</p>
<p>“No,” Dick rasps.  He lunges again.  Misses again.  “No!”</p>
<p>“Count ‘em, one two three dying birds all set to explode!”</p>
<p>There’s bomb.  There’s a bomb and Dick can barely stand, can feel alien laughter start to shake his body, knows he’ll be all but useless in less than a minute.</p>
<p>And still the shots ring out.</p>
<p>He’s going to die here, and that’s ok, death in uniform is something he’s resigned himself to a long time ago, but he will not let anyone else die with him.</p>
<p>Dick throws one last batarang in a perfect shot right to the Joker’s throat.</p>
<p>The Joker instinctively pulls it out, laughing as bright red arterial spray covers everything in front of him , laughter that turns to gurgles as he collapses, lifeless, on the ground, rictus grin undimmed.</p>
<p>Death for a death.  Seems fair enough.</p>
<p>He lets his knees buckle, falls, takes the deepest breath he can manage through the wheezing laughter that’s setting his side on fire and screams.</p>
<p>“It’s rigged to blow! Get out now!”</p>
<p>The closest henchmen turns, takes in the Joker’s body, does the smart thing and flees.  Several of his buddies aren’t far behind.  The general panic would usually make Dick laugh, a real one, not the giggly wheezes he’s forced into now, but even that ember of an impulse fades when one goon instead of running starts stalking towards him.</p>
<p>He can’t make his limbs move, manages, barely, to get his one remaining escrima up into a guard.  He can’t remember losing the other one and it’s bothering him more than it should.  The man’s got a bat and a cruel set to his shoulders, his trembling defense won’t be enough, but this way they can say he went down fighting.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Jason sees things in flashes only, the haze of green he’s allowed to take over preventing anything more clear.  Men in clown masks he shoots.  Superboy in chains.  Red Robin and Spoiler fighting back to back, wreathed in smoke.  Nightwing, swaying, shaking, throwing a batarang that lodges in the bastard’s throat.</p>
<p>It stops him, strips some of the green from his vision.  Dick wouldn’t – he doesn’t –</p>
<p>But he did, and the bastard is stupid or crazy enough to pull it out, and Jason can’t do anything but watch as he collapses, watch as the blood spills and pools.  The green recedes with every drop, until it’s only hovering at the edges like it does at every bad fight.  For the first time, it feels like it might stay there for good.</p>
<p>Then Dick falls, screams something about a bomb, and doesn’t fucking get back up.</p>
<p>Spoiler and Red are fighting their way to Superboy, and he picks off a few of their more interested opponents as he rushes to Dick whose blood he can now see dripping onto the hardwood floor. </p>
<p>He’s a mess, uniform torn, scratches across face, one hand clutching his side, and Jason roars when he sees one of the idiots move towards him with intent.</p>
<p>Dick just killed the Joker.  He gets to live to celebrate that victory.</p>
<p>Jason shoots the asshole in the shoulder and skids between him and his brother.  Said asshole takes one look at the Hood and runs.</p>
<p>“Supposed… to be… at home,” Dick wheezes.  The bastard must have released something.</p>
<p>“Yeah, yeah, you’re welcome,” Jason snarks back.  “Think you can get up?”</p>
<p>“….Maybe?”</p>
<p>Not good, not fucking at all good.  “Timeline on the bomb?”</p>
<p>“Don’t know.”</p>
<p>“Come on, Dickwing, give me something.  I can try to carry you but neither of us’ll like it very much.”  His knee, now that he’s back in his right mind, is starting to <em>throb</em>.</p>
<p>“Can’t… knee.  Go.”</p>
<p>Self-sacrificial shit.  “No can do.  Bad carry attempt it is.”</p>
<p>“Life… for a… life… Hood.  Get… the others… out.”</p>
<p>God Bruce messed Dick up.  “Not how this is gonna work.”</p>
<p>Logistically, he’s not actually sure he can carry Dick, not with his knee that way it is, but fuck it if he’s not gonna try.  If they’re lucky, once he gets back on his feet he’ll be able to support some or most of his own weight.</p>
<p>“Hood…”</p>
<p>“Nope, up.”  They are not doing this, he’s not letting Dick’s idiot neuroses get him killed just when he’s willing to casually call him brother again.</p>
<p>Dick tries, manages to push himself halfway up before he topples, preemptively wincing for how the fall’s going to hurt.</p>
<p>He’s caught by a blur that resolves itself into Superboy, sweaty and green-tinged but awake.</p>
<p>“Dramatic idiots,” Stephanie huffs from behind him.  She’s got one arm around Tim’s waist, but he seems to be mostly supporting himself.  “Superboy, any chance you can manage both of them?  Someone’s not supposed to be walking.”</p>
<p>“Hey, I was helpful!” Jason protests, hiding his relief.</p>
<p>“The bomb,” Dick rasps as Superboy lifts him against his side, careful of the stab wound still sluggishly bleeding.</p>
<p>“According to Red here, it’s on a trigger not a timer,” Steph says.  Dick sags that extra inch.  Jason’s green recedes a little more.  “Probably on the Joker’s body somewhere.”</p>
<p>Reflexively, they all look over at the pile of limbs that used to be their enemy.  Jason has the half-hysterical thought that someone should poke him with something just to make sure he’s dead.</p>
<p>“We’ll have O call the bomb squad once we’re out of signal-jammer range,” Steph continues.  “Right now, you need medical.”</p>
<p>“Red?” Dick asks.</p>
<p>“I’m ok, ‘Wing,” Tim answers.</p>
<p>“Good.”  Dick tries once more to get his feet under him, only to pass out halfway through the attempt.</p>
<p>Jason didn’t think he’d lost that much blood yet.</p>
<p>“Superboy, get him to Leslie’s.  O warned her there’d probably be incoming.  We’ll meet you there.”  A blink and he’s gone.  Steph turns to him.  “Hood, you good to get out of here?”</p>
<p>“I’ll manage.”  He’ll hurt like a motherfucker later, but he’ll manage.  “Nightwing –“</p>
<p>“Will be fine.”  She glances over at the bastard’s corpse.  “I’ll call this one a success.”</p>
<p>She doesn’t seem to be lying, about either Dick or her feelings on the bastard’s death, and Jason unclenches his fists.</p>
<p>Worry still thrums through him, won’t go away until he sees Dick awake, the emotion familiar from too many times watching Roy’s still body on a med cot.</p>
<p>But he can focus on the others now, Tim, glassy-eyed, sway growing more pronounced the longer they stand there, and Steph who seems whole but has a few suspicious darker spots on her uniform.</p>
<p>“Where’s your bike?” Steph asks, and he realizes he’s more out of it than he thought.</p>
<p>Get it together, one last hurdle.  “Right outside.”</p>
<p>“Can you take Red?”</p>
<p>“I’m – I can get there,” Tim tries, drawing himself up and away from Steph’s hold.  He doesn’t fall, but it looks like he wants to.</p>
<p>“I’ve got the kid.”  Jason takes a step, winces, and manages another.</p>
<p>Steph rolls her eyes.  It’s just as obvious behind her mask as his wince must have been.  She snags Tim around the waist and starts half-helping, half-dragging him outside.  Jason follows.  His knee does not loosen up like he feels it should.</p>
<p>“Sorry about your community center,” Jason mutters as Steph wrestles them both onto the bike.  A building haunted by the bastard is not where Gotham families are going to want to spend time.</p>
<p>He feels Tim shrug as they kick off, Steph firing a grapple behind them.  “I’ll find somewhere else.”</p>
<p>It’s bullshit, but the kid’s been through enough.  He’s not gonna call him on this one just yet.  Whatever he said to Dick about being fine, Jason’d put money on him hiding at least one injury, more likely several, not to mention how being dosed with Joker gas is gonna affect his clean streak and his antibiotics.</p>
<p>They get to Leslie’s without either of them falling off or passing out, but when this is over Jason’s calling an Uber.  The bike’ll be safe here for a few days and his knee is both screaming and stiffening further.</p>
<p>Steph’s beat them there, hanging out in the dark waiting room with its cracked plastic chairs and decades old magazines.</p>
<p>“Leslie said he’ll be fine,” she says as soon as the door shuts behind them.  “Just blood loss plus exhaustion plus the Joker venom.  He woke up right when they got here.”</p>
<p>“Kon?” Tim asks, and right, the kid’s probably having some of the same itchy feeling Jason gets when his teammates are out of sight after a big fight.  Maybe worse, considering the super kid’s his maybe boyfriend.</p>
<p>“Assisting Leslie.  Wing needed stitches in a couple places.”</p>
<p>Tim sags.  Steph’s smile is softer than her usual brassy grin.</p>
<p>“Come on, let me look you two over.”</p>
<p>She leads them to an empty exam room.  Shockingly, the ill-advised adventure has not messed up Jason’s knee much further.  It’ll take longer to heal, which he knows he’ll fucking moan about later, but he’s grateful now.  Tim’s wrists need bandaging, rubbed raw by chains, and he’s covered in bruises, but there are only one or two slashes that need stitching.  A week or so, he’ll be fine.  For a run-in with the bastard – the dead bastard, some gleeful part of Jason’s brain reminds him – that’s basically a miracle.</p>
<p>“Your turn,” he tells Steph once she’s bandaged the last slice on Tim’s side.  The look she gives him is both sarcastic and fond, and reminds him weirdly of Alfred, but she shimmies her uniform down to her waist and lets him stitch up the shallow cut above her hip and the deeper one at the top of her shoulder.</p>
<p>“It nicked my sports bra, didn’t it?” she asks, when he works the strap off her shoulder.  “Damn, I really liked this one.”</p>
<p>“Better the bra than your skin,” he reminds her, smoothing a bandage over his neat row of black thread.</p>
<p>“Like you don’t complain when you have to replace one of your jackets.”</p>
<p>She’s right, but he doesn’t have to admit it.  “Those are leather.”</p>
<p>“These are expensive and require a very specific amount of breaking in.”</p>
<p>“You won’t win this one,” Tim slurs, eyes starting to blink closed.  “I’ve tried.”</p>
<p>It’s not so much about winning as something stupid to argue about so he doesn’t have to think, but whatever.</p>
<p>They fall silent.</p>
<p>“I called Oracle,” Steph says, abrupt.  “Told her about the bomb, and that the Joker – that he’s dead.  She told me to tell you congratulations, Hood.”</p>
<p>Which is when Jason realizes that everyone thinks <em>he</em> killed the bastard.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Dick wakes up in the familiar-unfamiliar confines of one of Leslie’s exam rooms.  He shifts, feels paper crackle underneath him, takes comfort in that sign that his injuries weren’t bad enough to merit a full hospital bed.  He remembers, vaguely, seeing Leslie before passing out again, and even if he hadn’t the sharp smell of medical-grade alcohol warring with old-building mustiness is unmistakable.</p>
<p>He still waits before opening his eyes.</p>
<p>At least, until he hears a familiar snort from next to him.</p>
<p>Jason, scrolling through his phone, hood off but domino still on, bad leg propped up and encased in a heavy-duty knee brace.</p>
<p>“What so funny?” he rasps.</p>
<p>Jason looks up, fishes out a bottle of water from behind him, opens it, and hands it to Dick. He eases himself upright, noting the pull of stitches where that knife went in and a few extra places, and takes it.  Easy, wordless, just like it is with the rest of his siblings, just like it used to be, briefly, before Jason died.</p>
<p>Despite everything, this is the first time he truly believes Jason will stay.</p>
<p>“How’re you feeling?”</p>
<p>He takes stock, a slower one, knowing he’s safe instead of assuming, recognizing, now, the slight fuzziness of prescription painkillers.  “Sore.  Won’t be good for much for a week or so.  Nothing’s broken, though I’m gonna be black and blue for a while.”</p>
<p>“If I wanted your mission-readiness, I could’ve asked Leslie.  How are you feeling?”</p>
<p>Oh.  “I don’t regret it, if that’s what you’re asking.”</p>
<p>“Good.”  Jason sits back.  Dick takes another sip of water.  “They all think I did it, you know.”</p>
<p>That’s – not good.  “I’ll tell them the truth.  You won’t – don’t let them try to, to kick you out because of this, not – stay Jay, please, I’ll tell them truth, I don’t – Tim needs you, I can stay in Bludhaven –“</p>
<p>“Woah, woah, woah,” Jason stops him, waving his hands, jaw dropped.  “I’m fine, no one’s mad – well, I’m not sure anyone’s told B, but who gives a fuck about him – I can run with the lie, keep your golden boy reputation intact, I don’t mind, ok?  Just wanted to make sure we had our story straight before someone asked.”</p>
<p>Dick slumps back, wincing when it pulls at the stab wound.  “I told you, I don’t regret it.”</p>
<p>And he doesn’t, can’t, not when it’s the monster who’s tried over and over to kill his people, who killed Jason, not even when the consequences leave him bruised and alone like last time.</p>
<p>Jason’s looking at him, assessing, blade-sharp gaze like a battlefield embrace, and it scares and soothes all at once, because he knows now, has at least the shape of Dick’s worst days and still hasn’t turned away.</p>
<p>“You might be the only one of us B would let get away with it.”</p>
<p>He shakes his head, ignores the way it makes his vision swoop.  “No.  I tried, once.  He didn’t let it last.”</p>
<p>Silence.</p>
<p>“He did what?” Jason growls, gunsmoke rough, and right, there was a reason he’d never brought this up.</p>
<p>Maybe he’s not tracking as well as he thought.</p>
<p>“Said afterwards he didn’t want me living with that burden.”</p>
<p>“When?”</p>
<p>“I – before we knew you were back.  Or before I knew, at least.”  He can’t quite make himself look at Jay.  “I would have taken the burden, the, the consequences, whatever they were, just like I will this time.”</p>
<p>There’s a hand, reaching out, grabbing his shoulder.  “Look at me.”  Dick, reluctantly, does.  The hand and his brother are shaking.  “There won’t be consequences.  Not this time.  Not for the bastard.  None of that death for a death stuff you were spouting earlier, alright?  No.”</p>
<p>“There are always consequences.”  It’s a truth he’s known since long before Bruce.</p>
<p>Jay’s still shaking, minute tremors, but it doesn’t feel like rage.  “Ok.  Ok, you wanna know the consequences?  Red Hood as your backup as long as I draw breath, that’s one.  Kids, a Robin, safe, that’s two, and, and, now Roy’s going to think you’re cool again.  There.  Consequences of your actions.”</p>
<p>Yes, but… “Those are all good things.”</p>
<p>“Roy thinking you’re cool is way less great than you think, but yeah, yeah they are.  That’s the point.”  Jason squeezes his shoulder when he starts to protest.  “I’m not going to punish you anymore than you would me.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t know how to answer that.</p>
<p>“You’re forgetting the most obvious consequence,” a voice says from the doorway.  Dick feels less bad about his flinch when Jason jumps about three feet in the air.</p>
<p>“Jesus, kid, <em>knock</em>,” Jason tells Tim, leaning half-shadowed in the doorway.  Tim raps his knuckles against the frame with a smirk.</p>
<p>“As I was saying, what you forgot is that ‘Wing here has to tell all of this to his new therapist.”</p>
<p>Jason’s eyes light up.  Dick groans.</p>
<p>“Yep, there you go, that's your bad consequence, Dickie.  So don't go looking for any other ones.  Tim, have I told you lately you’re a genius?”</p>
<p>“Always happy to be told again.”  His eyes rake over Dick, cataloguing injuries almost as well as Bruce can, but with an edge of warmth and worry to the calculation Bruce has long since lost.  “You ok?”</p>
<p>“I’ll be fine.”</p>
<p>Tim nods.  “Thanks for coming to find me.”</p>
<p>“Always.”</p>
<p>Even if the consequences are much, much worse than a few uncomfortable conversations.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Dick falls asleep again almost immediately, more boneless than he was before, true rest rather than unconsciousness.</p>
<p>“How long were you listening?” Jason asks Tim, still lurking in the shadows.</p>
<p>“Long enough.”  He staggers over and collapses in the other chair in the corner.  The lurid black eye revealed now he’s in civilian clothes explains why he didn’t come in sooner.  “Came to tell you Leslie wants us out of uniform.”</p>
<p>Jason eyes Dick.  “I’m not waking him up.”</p>
<p>Tim flicks a glance at their sleeping brother.  “We’ll take the domino off and it’ll be fine.”</p>
<p>Well, Dick’s Nightwing pants can pass for particularly nice yoga pants at a glance, and Leslie’s already stripped the top half off of him.  First thing anyone’ll notice is the bandages anyway. “There solvent somewhere?”</p>
<p>“Catch.”  Tim tosses him a tiny bottle.  Jason takes off his mask, glad once again that without the helmet he can pass pretty well for regular street thug, and leans over to carefully remove Dickie’s.  “So, what’s the plan?”</p>
<p>“For what?” Dick’s nose scrunches as the glue releases.</p>
<p>“For Dick.”  The <em>you idiot</em> could not be more strongly implied.  “Are we letting him tell the truth?”</p>
<p>“Can you think of way to stop him?”  Jason can’t, but Tim’s much better at manipulation than him.  He’s not sure when that thought stopped being worrying.</p>
<p>“Maybe.  Not sure it’d be a good idea though.”  Tim’s obviously gotten some sleep, considering he’s no longer listing to the side like a half-sunk ship, but there’s no way it was near enough.  “Not – not sure if lying will make it worse.”</p>
<p>“He said he doesn’t regret it.”  He’s not thinking about the other things he said.  Can’t.  It’s been too fucking long of a day.</p>
<p>“He’s not very good at taking care of himself.”</p>
<p>“Well, that’s why he’s got us.”  Jason meets Tim’s eyes and sees the same burning reflected in them as in his own.</p>
<p>“Tim?” he hears from the doorway.  This time, he doesn’t startle.  “Can we – Steph got one of your cars.  We should go home.”</p>
<p>Kon’s more haggard than Jason’s ever seen him, probably will be until he can get some sunlight, and he’s staring at Tim like he’s afraid he’ll be taken away.  For the first time, Jason considers what exactly happened to leave Tim alone on that rooftop.</p>
<p>Tim bites his lip, glances at Dick, and yeah, Jason would also like all his people in the same place, please and thank you.</p>
<p>“Can you carry him out to the car?” he asks Kon, who nods and gently lifts Dick into his arms.  Dick stirs, but for once doesn’t wake up at the least sound or movement.  “Tim, I might need a hand getting up.”</p>
<p>“I’ve got you,” Steph says, letting Kon past before coming in and hauling him to his feet.  “Tim’s too short to be a crutch.”</p>
<p>“Hey.”</p>
<p>“She’s not wrong.”  Moving means all the stiffness he’s been ignoring is back to haunt him.  “Shorty.”</p>
<p>He accepts Tim’s weak thump against his arm with a grin and forces himself to keep limping forward.</p>
<p>“Tim may be shortest, but you’re heaviest,” Steph mock grumbles.</p>
<p>“I’m not saying what you have the most of.”  Jason’s speaking glance at her shirt does it for him well enough.</p>
<p>“Animals.  Where’s Cass when you need her?”</p>
<p>They bicker all the way to Tim’s stupidly nice car, and most of the way up to his apartment, until the exhaustion really hits and Jason nudges them all towards Tim’s bed.  Kon lays Dick down and stops, confused.</p>
<p>“Should we – I can take the guest room,” Kon offers.  His eyes keep drifting closed.</p>
<p>Tim doesn’t even attempt to answer that verbally and just pulls Kon down on top of him.  Steph takes off Kon and Tim’s shoes and crawls in after.  Jason snickers.  He’s got no desire to join the cuddle pile and limps instead over to the armchair in the corner.  He’ll keep watch.</p>
<p>Someone should, just in case.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>When Dick wakes up this time, he’s too warm in an unfamiliar bed, and someone’s snuffling against the back of his neck.  He’s maybe less concerned about this than he should be, but he’s always had a good instinct for recognizing friend from foe, and there’s no alarm going off in his subconscious.  He cracks an eye open, recognizes Tim’s room, relaxes that extra half-inch, and rolls over and finds the sleep-snuffler is Steph, snoring, hair caught in her open mouth.  He raises himself up on an elbow, ignoring the ache it causes, to see that the lump beyond her is made up of Tim and Kon, wrapped up together until they’re almost one person.  All they’re missing is Jason, who, when he looks around, is asleep on the armchair in the corner, head tipped back and foot propped up.</p>
<p>Which is about the point when registers how gross he feels.</p>
<p>It doesn’t take much for him to ease himself out of bed and into the bathroom, where he checks and replaces bandages, noting all the new tender spots as he wipes off most of the grime and sweat around his stitches.  Really, all the spots are tender, his muscles sore from exertion and electrocution.  He’d like a shower, but he shouldn’t get the stitches wet yet, and besides, he doesn’t want to wake up anyone sleeping in Tim’s room, at least not before he’s started coffee and breakfast.</p>
<p>Not that he achieves that goal, considering Jason’s eyes slit open as soon as he eases back into the bedroom.</p>
<p>“Go back to sleep,” he breathes.  Jason nods, settles himself more firmly in his chair.</p>
<p>After several weeks of rotating houseguests, Tim’s fridge is full, a mixture of ingredients for Jason’s planned dinners, basic grocery staples, produce from the Kent farm, and leftover takeout.  Plenty of things he can use to make breakfast.</p>
<p>Tim’s the next one awake, probably because he can smell coffee through lead-lined walls.</p>
<p>Though, awake may be pushing it, considering the way he slumps against the counter.  Dick takes the opportunity to look him over, too out of it last night to do more than confirm there weren’t any gushing wounds.</p>
<p>Raw wrists, still wrapped, a bad black eye, and everything else covered by his clothes.  Moving like he’s sore.  Not good, but physically no worse off than he’s been a dozen times before.  Emotionally…</p>
<p>He slides over a cup of coffee.  “How do you feel?”</p>
<p>“Not up for patrol.”</p>
<p>Even that admission feels something like miraculous.</p>
<p>“Joker’s dead.  Think we can all take a few nights off.”</p>
<p>Tim sips his coffee.  “Has anyone told Bruce?”</p>
<p>“Um…” He certainly hadn’t.  “I haven’t had time?”</p>
<p>Tim raises his eyebrows.  “No one has.  Babs probably passed it along, at least.”</p>
<p>“She – Babs doesn’t have all the information.”</p>
<p>He’ll tell her.  Eventually.</p>
<p>Tim’s at least half-awake now, enough to give him a speculative look.  “You know, I thought, if you’re ok with it, we’ll hold that particular information in reserve until the net time Bruce feels especially self-righteous towards Jason.”</p>
<p>“Tim…”</p>
<p>“Dick, it’s not your job to take on the weight of the world, much less the weight of the Bat’s disapproval.”</p>
<p>“And Jason’s job is?”</p>
<p>“Jason doesn’t care what Bruce thinks.  You do.”</p>
<p>That’s not quite true.  “Jason cares.  He’s just used to disappointment.  And I… well, I’ve never been great at following orders.”</p>
<p>The look Tim gives him is too full of understanding to be comfortable.  “You follow them until it will literally kill you or someone else.  It’s not your fault Bruce’s orders sometimes suck.”</p>
<p>“That’s not – he’s not – he tries.”</p>
<p>Tim sighs, concedes.  “And we love him for it.”</p>
<p>Dick swallows down the lump in his throat.  “Yeah.”</p>
<p>They do.  Every fumbling attempt.  Even when they shouldn't.</p>
<p>“So,” Tim says after a moment, false-bright, “food?”</p>
<p>Dick laughs, remembering him too-skinny and unwilling to eat, and starts scrambling eggs.  He’s got the first batch cooked and plated and is starting on sausage when Kon stumbles in.  He immediately drapes himself across Tim’s back, stealing a bite of eggs but smart enough not to touch the coffee.  Dick pours him his own cup.</p>
<p>Kon looks better this morning, sleepy and mussed rather than green-tinged.</p>
<p>“How’s the shoulder?”</p>
<p>He rolls it, shrugs.  “Fine now.”</p>
<p>“Your healing is unfair,” Tim grumbles.</p>
<p>“Your face is unfair,” Kon tells him, nuzzling into his hair.  Apparently that whole thing, whatever it is, progressed at some point while Dick wasn’t paying attention.  Good for them.</p>
<p>Steph is the next up, very awake and cheerful with it.  Tim groans, but Dick allows himself to meet her enthusiasm, to be a little manic, a little silly, as he toasts bread and fries sausage and makes endless amounts of eggs.  Usually, he tones it down in the mornings, well aware of his family’s preferences.  It’s nice not to have to.</p>
<p>Jason, of course, appears last, scowling over to the counter to steal the last two pieces of sausage.  Dick puts more bread in the toaster.</p>
<p>“How’s the knee?”</p>
<p>“Fine.  How’s the stab wound?”</p>
<p>“Fine.”</p>
<p>Tim interrupts their terrible attempts at check-ins.  “Since we’re all here and awake, should we debrief?”</p>
<p>“Awake is pushing it,” Jason mutters.</p>
<p>“Eh, I think we all know the basics,” Steph says with a dismissive wave.  “You and Superboy here got kidnapped, the rest of us went to rescue you, the Joker died, no one got mortally wounded, we all have fun new trauma.  Anybody got anything to add?”</p>
<p>“Joker was our serial killer,” Dick offers.  “So we should check Arkham security.  Again.”</p>
<p>Silence greets that pronouncement.</p>
<p>“Ok, so we did need to debrief,” Steph says.  “And Tim, if you say anything condescending, I will dye all your socks purple.”  Tim shuts his mouth.</p>
<p>“It can’t – there’s no way it’s that easy.”  Jason this time, lost, voice pitched higher than normal.</p>
<p>“Occam’s Razor,” says Tim.  “Makes sense.  He wanted to draw out the Bat, the best way to do that is to threaten Robins, and those bodies were a threat.”</p>
<p>“The Joker’s not usually that subtle though,” Steph says with an unhappy frown.  “I want it to be true, but…”</p>
<p>“He told me,” Dick interrupts.  He wants this all to be over, to go back to his family sleepy over breakfast, to not think about the spray of red he caused or how he’s going to tell his father about it.  He wants this ghost to quit haunting them.  “You were there, you heard.  He said he’d left little Robins all over the city.”</p>
<p>Silence.  Kon looks sick, Tim not much better.  Steph seems sadly resigned.</p>
<p>“Fucker,” Jason says into the quiet, the only one of them who seems relieved.  “Dick, we got any more toast?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”  And that’s the end of it.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>It’s midafternoon before Bruce comes knocking.  Dick had called in sick, gotten Leah to cover his shift, and Tim had done the same at Wayne Enterprises.  They’ve been napping and watching old movies, enjoying the quiet after too much storm.  The knock on the door makes them all jerk upright.  Steph pauses the movie.</p>
<p>Kon, as the closest and least injured, gets up to check the peephole.  His quiet yelp moves Tim to stand.</p>
<p>“Kon?”</p>
<p>“Um, your um, Mr. Wayne is outside?”</p>
<p>Jason is the only one who relaxes, sinking deeper into the couch, faking indifference with both feet still firmly on the floor.</p>
<p>“Might as well let him in,” he says.  Kon looks at Tim, gets his nod, and does.</p>
<p>Bruce is in one of his work suits, rumpled like he just got off a plane, bags under sharp eyes, a carefully calculated picture of a businessman home after a too-early flight.  Damian, in hoodie and sneakers, lurks behind him.  They walk in, Kon shuts the door, and after a moment too long of quiet, Dick elects himself spokesperson.</p>
<p>“Hey B, what can we do for you?”  When he gets no answer, he turns to Damian, refusing to wait in silence.  “Dami, how’s school?  Any chance you’re free Thursday?  Ms. Siedland wants to see you.”</p>
<p>Damian darts a glance at his father.  “Tell her I will endeavor to stop by.”</p>
<p>“I will.”  God, he wants to hug the kid, safe now, safer than maybe he’s ever been.  Knows Dami would never allow it.</p>
<p>Another silence, everyone still waiting, still tense.  Dick had really been hoping to put this off, but he gathers himself in preparation for the screaming match that’ll erupt soon enough.</p>
<p>“I was told there was an… altercation,” Bruce says finally.  “I wanted to… confirm what happened.”</p>
<p>Of course, he wants a mission report as soon as he gets back into town.  Dick isn’t even surprised enough to be disappointed.</p>
<p>Tim bites his lip, starts.  “Kon and I were patrolling Robbinsville when –“</p>
<p>“No,” Bruce interrupts. ”I – none of you were hurt?”</p>
<p>Wait, wait.  Is B really… Dick takes in the way his eyes keep flicking over them, cataloguing Jason’s knee brace, Tim’s wrists and black eye.  He came because he was worried about them?</p>
<p>A surge of tenderness makes Dick’s voice softer than it should be when he tells Bruce, “We’re fine.  Minor stuff, bruises, some cuts.  Worst injury’s Jason’s knee, and that should heal fine in a few weeks.</p>
<p>“If he stays off it,” Steph mutters.  Jason shoots her a glare.</p>
<p>“Good,” Bruce says, clearing his throat.  “Good, I’m… good.”</p>
<p>The tenderness mixes with sorrow, that this stilted show is all Bruce can offer.  “Uh, we’re watching a movie, want to join?”</p>
<p>For a long moment, Dick thinks Bruce will say yes, hopes he will, but in the end he shakes his head.  “Work I need to catch up on.  Next time.”</p>
<p>“Of course.”  Maybe there will be a next time.  “Dami, would you like to stay?”  He should’ve checked with Tim first, but oh well.</p>
<p>Damian hesitates, glancing up at Bruce, who says nothing one way or the other, before nodding.</p>
<p>“Great!”  Dick gives into his impulses and puts an arm around Damian to drag him to the couch.  “Have you seen <em>The Goonies</em>, or do we need to start over?”</p>
<p>“The goon whats?”  Dami’s nose wrinkles.  It’s adorable.</p>
<p>“Starting over it is,” Steph says, messing with the remote.</p>
<p>Bruce is gone when Dick turns back around.  It hurts, but not as much as it used to, and even less with Dami pressed against one side, watching the TV with rapt attention, and Steph curled up half-asleep against his shoulder.  She wakes up to mumble <em>hey youse guys</em> with Sloth and Dick can’t help but hug her closer, content.</p>
<p>They're safe, they're here, and he's ok.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Jason can’t sleep.  He’s never had Dick’s level of insomnia, but hypervigilance is baked into him just as much as the rest of them, and some nights he can’t make himself turn off.  He’d wandered down to the mini-Cave to clean his guns and sharpen his knives and now he was sneaking back upstairs, only to find Kon awake and staring out the window.</p>
<p>“You too, huh?” he says, grinning at the way Kon twitches.</p>
<p>“I don’t understand this city,” is Kon’s obscure reply.  He closes his eyes and Jason realizes he’s been listening, like his father does, to the screams and conversations and late night city sounds none of the rest of them can hear.  “It’s – there’s hope, but it’s not – it’s not like Metropolis, something bright and shining and present.  More like blood, thrumming.  Can’t ever get rid of all of it, no matter how you try.”  He presses a hand to the glass.  “There’s more of it tonight,” he whispers.  “And so much disbelief.  They can’t believe he’s really dead.  But there’s that bloody hope, and it won’t be washed out.  I don’t… I don’t <em>understand</em>.”</p>
<p>“It’s Gotham,” Jason offers.  “No one does.”</p>
<p>Kon turns, a desperate look on his face.  “But Tim loves it.  I – I thought if I could understand it maybe I could learn to love It too.”</p>
<p>Oh, this is <em>that</em> conversation.  “You don’t have to love it, love Gotham.  We – Tim won’t expect you to.  We know it’s – this city’s in our blood, not yours.  And there’s no stopping that.”</p>
<p>“Don’t – I know.  I know Tim will never leave.  I – I won’t ask him to.”</p>
<p>Maybe not the conversation he thought.  Everyone else tries to convince them to give it up, their dark brooding city.  Jason moves to stand next to the kid, still a kid, like Tim, no matter the muscles or powers, one who got kidnapped last night.</p>
<p>“Roy and Kori hate it here.  Not that B likes having them here, particularly Kori, so they mostly stay away.  I don’t blame them for it, just like they don’t blame me for coming back.”  At least they don't now.</p>
<p>“You’re not in love with them,” Kon says miserably.</p>
<p>“No.”  Not the way he means, at least.  “Did you finally decide you are?”</p>
<p>“They took me first.  He – he took me first.  Smart.  I went to help Tim and didn’t watch my back.  I – I forget I have to, sometimes, and what low-level thug carries kryptonite?”</p>
<p>“You supers love to think you’re indestructible.”</p>
<p>He huffs at that.  “Yeah, and then I died.”</p>
<p>“Oh.”  Jason forgets that he’s not the only one who’s had to come back.  “Join the club?”</p>
<p>“Is there actually a club? I want…” Kon sighs, turns back to the window.  Jason turns with him.  His knee’s hurting, but this is more important.  “I came back to life, and everything’s different except me.  Except I was, different, I mean, and I didn’t even know it.”</p>
<p>“I knew I came back different.  Took me a long time to realize different didn’t have to equal wrong.”  Jason pauses, tries to fit words to what he knows to be true.  He hates talking about this.  “It changes you, like anything major.  But of all the life events with a before and after, death might be the one with the starkest line.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”  They stare out into the night.  “I thought about taking Tim away, that first night.  When you told me what was wrong.  I’m glad I didn’t.”</p>
<p>Jason is too.  “He’s a good kid,” he offers.  “So’re you.”</p>
<p>“I was worried – but I thought it must be the new normal, the way he worked himself so hard.  That it wasn’t makes me wonder why I didn’t notice sooner.”</p>
<p>No one noticed, and that’s a problem, but it’s not Kon’s fault.  “Little shit’s good at hiding.  I only found out because I literally stumbled on him.  And we don’t think to look for that sort of shit.  Emotional shit.  Easier not to talk about it.”</p>
<p>“We’re talking about it now.”</p>
<p>Jason laughs at the petulance in Kon's voice, knocks against his shoulder, tries to lighten the mood.  “It’s past two am, nothing I say can be held against me.”</p>
<p>“Sure,”  Kon says, leaning heavy on the Kansas drawl.</p>
<p>“I’m a fierce and dangerous anti-hero, you know.”</p>
<p>Kon raises his eyebrows at him, halfway to condescending.  “That only works until someone sees you shouting at Dick for stealing your strawberry yogurt.”</p>
<p>“Unrepentant thief,” Jason grumbles half-heartedly.</p>
<p>They go back to staring out the window, levity lost as soon as it came.</p>
<p>“He’s doing better though,” Kon says.  “Tim.  He – things are better.”</p>
<p>They may not stay that way, but for now, “Yeah.  They really are.”</p>
<p>He lets the blood-hope of Gotham wash over him and finds  comfort in the city darkness.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>He can mostly move without pulling at his stitches and the bruises have started turning yellow-green by the time Dick makes it back to his job at the coffee shop.  Neither Tom nor Helen asked for any kind of official excuse, but he knows they’re curious.  He’s rarely ever missed a shift.</p>
<p>So, he’s not exactly surprised when Helen ambushes him at the front door and leads him to Tom’s office.  He manages a quick wave at Darlene, who grins and shakes her head at his unvoiced pleas for help, before Helen’s got him in the office with the door closed.</p>
<p>At some point he really needs to get more of her backstory.  She’s far too good at picking out hidden injuries, considering her eyes catch everywhere there’s a bandage under his clothes.</p>
<p>He tries to head off the coming interrogation.  “Sorry I’ve been out.  Family thing.”</p>
<p>Helen’s scowl says his cheery smile’s not fooling anyone, but Tom at least goes along with it.</p>
<p>“Anything we can help with?”</p>
<p>“No, but thank you.”</p>
<p>The scowl’s been turned on Tom and taken on new dimensions of meaning.  Tom ignores it.  That might be more impressive than the way he’d talked down Jason.</p>
<p>“Um, anything else you need?” Dick asks, hoping to get out of here.</p>
<p>Tom’s “no” clashes with Helen’s “yes” and they ignore Dick to battle it out with aggressive eye contact.  If he thought he could sneak away, he would, but even bat-training doesn’t hold up to Tom’s general awareness and Helen’s too sharp ears.</p>
<p>“Dick,” Tim says finally, still not breaking eye contact, “Do you mind me telling Helen why you need to leave your shift a few minutes early?”</p>
<p>“I’ve got a therapy appointment?”  It’s not like he’s trying to keep it a secret, though he does appreciate that Tom asked.</p>
<p>“And do you actually talk to this person?” Helen asks, and right, he’d told her about his issues finding someone.</p>
<p>“He already knows my biggest secret,” he tells her, and that’s enough to end the war of eye-contact.</p>
<p>Of course, then her gaze gets turned back on him, but it's softer now, firm rather than bruising.  “Good.  Now, Lola wanted me to ask you a couple questions about that event you have her catering.  And I’ve already told Darlene to take it easy on you, no doing all the heavy lifting like usual, ok?”</p>
<p>He smiles, a real one, at Helen’s brisk manner of caring.  “Got it.  And thanks.”</p>
<p>He leaves the office, takes over the register, soaks in the mismatched chairs and blue walls and cabinet of mugs and feels a little easier in his skin.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Jason sneaks out as soon as he can to check on Leah and her street kids.</p>
<p>Soon as he can does not equal as soon as he’d like, because Steph and his brothers are very effective jailers, but eventually Dick heals up enough to go on patrol and Tim and Kon have a Titan’s thing and Steph has to study and Jason’s left blessedly alone.</p>
<p>His knee’s fine.  Sure, it still aches and standing up too long means he gets shooting pains any time he puts weight on it, but it’s not like he’s going out to look for a fight.  He’ll go right back to the apartment as soon as he checks on his people.</p>
<p>It’s been a little over a week since the bastard’s death and Gotham’s quiet, calming down from the buzz of speculation and rumor that sprung up when the GCPD went into the old yacht club and found his body.</p>
<p>Bruce hasn’t asked.  Jason’s starting to think he’s not going to.  He can’t decide if that’s progress or not.</p>
<p>Leah takes less time than usual to reach their fire escape, only long enough for him to sit down and stretch out his bad leg.</p>
<p>“Scout was in that high window tonight,” he tells her as she climbs.</p>
<p>“One of three, not bad.  How’d you spot them?”</p>
<p>It’s less that he saw them and more that he knew they had to be there.  “Vigilante’s intuition.  Doubt anyone else would have noticed.”</p>
<p>“Good.”  She settles down next to him.  “What’s the news?”</p>
<p>“Wanted to thank you for the tip, check in.  That’s all.”</p>
<p>“We’re good.  I’m good.  Now that there’s no serial killer lurking, we all feel a little safer.”  She swings her legs out over the drop, easy and carefree.  He notices the new hat she's wearing, is pretty sure one of the women at the coffee shop knit it.  Dick has one that's similar.  “What about you?”</p>
<p>Dick came back from therapy this week exhausted but smiling.  Tim’s shown no signs of relapse despite being unwillingly dosed.  He and Steph now have a text chain composed mostly of absurd gifs and memes.  Kon hasn’t run screaming from Gotham.  He and the demon brat even had a mostly civilized conversation about <em>The Odyssey</em>, of all things.</p>
<p>Most importantly, “The bastard – the Joker – he’s dead.  I’m fucking <em>fantastic</em>.”</p>
<p>She laughs, high and happy and young.</p>
<p>The next crisis will come, he knows, but now he’s got people to face it with.  He laughs with her.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>TW: Dead children, descriptions of violence and dead bodies (not super graphic), references to canonical rape/non-con, references to underage prostitution, references to drug use, references to suicide. If I've forgotten anything, please let me know.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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